


Cascading Effect

by WingedLadyColette



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Reincarnation, doppleganger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:55:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 73,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22393624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedLadyColette/pseuds/WingedLadyColette
Summary: Before she was Caroline, she was Lilah. And her connection to the children of Mikael and Esther are seen to present-day Mystic Falls when Caroline Forbes, wearing the face of beloved Lilah, is found smack dab in the middle of the Original Family's chaos. Lovers become enemies, enemies become allies and forever and always are put to the test. *Soulmate AU*
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson, Hayley Marshall/Elijah Mikaelson
Comments: 82
Kudos: 225





	1. Called Upon

She was beautiful. She was kind. Everyone in their village loved her. She spent her time singing to the kids and helping out the women and even looking after the men, their injuries from hunting or building their homes, and was a joy to be around. Her hair was a halo of blond around her head hanging in long strands down her back with pretty blue eyes and fair-skinned.

Her dresses were always pretty but the bottoms were stained with mud and so were her nails. She often stuck her hands behind her back whenever her mother would walk by to hide the fact that she was getting dirty while entertaining the children. Her mother would always know, chastise her, before moving on to continue working. She would find the eyes of the nearest person, smile like the secret was theirs to share now, before going back to what she was doing.

"You can stop staring at her, dear brother, she isn't going to love you."

Pretty blue eyes with a bit of green near the pupils snap away from the girl humming to the children and look over at his younger brother standing a few feet from him. He glares at the younger boy.

"Oh mind yourself, Kol."

"I am minding myself," the younger of the two smiles mischievously, turning his own brown eyes toward the pretty blond girl. "I'm also not standing at the side of our house watch pretty Lilah entertain Henrik and the other children when I could... oh I don't know, say hello? Or at least stop staring at her." His smile sharpens a bit more. "Here, I'll show you how."

His eyes widen slightly, realizing that something horrible was about to happen. "Kol, no!"

"Lilah!" Kol yells, drawing her own pretty blue eyes away from the kids to look for the person who called out to her. She first lays eyes on Kol, seeing the mischevious boy grinning back at her as he waves his hand over his head before looking to the person next to him. The action draws Lilah's eyes over to Niklaus, watching as he went from glaring at Kol, to looking at the ground, then around himself as if he would be able to disappear into the ground by will. Finally, he builds up the courage to look up and meet her eyes.

Lilah smiles when Niklaus finally meets her eyes. A smile so bright and beautiful creases appear around her eyes.

"See," Kol says softly, a playful, mischievous glint in his dark eyes "sometimes you just have to go for it."

***

"I can't believe, after all this time, we are back here," Kol says, rolling his eyes and glaring at Klaus's and Elijah's retreating forms, phone to former's ear as he snarls at the person on the other side.

"Yes," Rebekah draws, twirling a strand of long blond hair around her finger, pouting in annoyance and boredom. "I can't believe Nik undaggered you for this." She rolls her eyes, glaring at her brother.

Kol's smile is frosty. "Pleasure as always, Rebekah. And brother felt he needed me because I am the only one with good connections with the witches."

Rebekah glares at him harder. "Not in Mystic Falls, you don't."

Kol shrugs his shoulders, unconcerned. "Fine, dear sister, I didn't want to say it, but I guess I must. Brother seems to find greater value in my ability to help, then yours."

Rebekah looks both more annoyed and genuinely hurt. "Then why would he undagger me if he didn't think I could be helpful?"

Kol gives her a level stare with a crooked, mean smile on his lips. "Well, as useless as you have proven to be, dear Rebekah, you are still Niklaus's favorite little sister."

Rebekah glares daggers at her brother, looking like she was ready to rip his head from his shoulders and throw it across the room in her anger. She grinds her teeth together, trying to control her anger in the bustling pub full of humans who would not be able to understand how Kol would be able to get up after she had done that to him. She turns her pretty blue eyes toward her oldest brother as he makes his way back into the room without Klaus and makes his way over to the table his younger two siblings were sitting at.

"Elijah, tell Kol to stop being so mean," Rebekah demands as soon as the oldest of the four undaggered siblings moves close to the table. "Or the people of Mystic Falls are going to get a rude surprise in the form of Kol's head flying across this room."

Kol laughs, finding sick amusement in his little sister's threat while Elijah looks between the two of them displeased with their bickering. Missed them as he did, he wished that the two could get along better but figured this was what he wanted, after all. He wanted them together and they are. He simply has to accept that they have some undesirable traits. They are his family though. And they made a promise. Always and forever.

"Knock it off, both of you. Don't force me to have to separate the two of you like petulant children." Elijah shoots them both a leveled stare to show that he was serious.

Kol rolls his eyes, throwing back his shot of bourbon, not minding being the day drinker as Rebekah stares at her elder brother with disbelief and shaking her head. "Elijah, you're just going to let him - "

Elijah holds up his hand to silence her, then uses that hand to rub at his forehead, sighing deeply and annoyed. He turns to offer them both another look before looking back toward the exit where he and Klaus previously used. If he honed his hearing hard enough he could almost imagine that he could still hear Klaus yelling angrily at his informant.

"Enough, Rebekah, please. Can the two of you stand for a peaceful reunion between siblings that haven't been together for a long time?" Elijah rubs the tips of his fingers together subconsciously, feeling a fresh wave of agitation wash over him. Seeing as Klaus hasn't stormed in here ready to get moving, he has yet to have another direction on the witches that are targeting them. They are extra tenacious compared to those that have been hunting them for hundreds of years. They have been bad enough that Klaus knew he had to get back together with Elijah and awaken both Rebekah and Kol.

Both his two younger siblings give each other looks. Rebekah's angry and annoyed while Kol's was sardonic and smug.

"Stop looking at me like that, Kol," Rebekah snaps, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest.

Kol laughs, amused at annoying his younger sister before taking a sip of the new drink placed in front of him by the wandering waitress. His dark brown eyes wander the room half-listening to Rebekah stubborn insistence next to him as he looks around at all the faces of the people of Mystic Falls, wondering which one is going to taste the best when he sees a flash of blond.

Normally, blonds only catch his attention momentarily, he prefers brunettes, but then she turns slightly to talk to the guy following her into the building and when he sees her face, he can't believe it. He blinks a few times, trying to see if his eyes will clear up and reveal her real face or if what he's seeing is the real thing. He can't believe, being as old as he is, that a blast from the past would reveal itself to him. A face he never thought he would see again once his siblings fled Mystic Falls the first time he never thought that he would see her again.

"Lilah..." Kol says, his eyes are blown wide as he stands up slowly.

Rebekah stops, mid-sentence. She blinks a few times, tilting her head to the side for a second before saying, "What did you just say?" Elijah turns to look over at his younger brother, dark eyebrows pulled together.

"Kol?"

Rebekah stands up slowly, following her brother's gaze across the room. She spots the blond, then moves past her, until she laughs, then heads toward the bar, and Rebekah sees her face and her jaw drops as pain sliced through her like a white oak stake. She physically grabs at her heart, feeling like she can't breathe. Tears stabbed at her eyes.

"Lilah?" She whispers. "Oh... god, it's Lilah..." Tears slide down her face. "Elijah... oh, Elijah!"

Elijah follows their gaze, with her in mind, he finds her face. He was ready to deny her. To make note that there was one difference here or another difference there when her face came out to be exactly as he remembered it to be. All those years ago.

Rebekah quickly brushes the tears away and pushes her chair back so that she can rush over to the girl, she makes it as far as Elijah before he catches her arm and holds it in a death grip.

"Let me go, Elijah, I need to see her," Rebekah says, weakly pulling against her older brother.

"Hold on, Rebekah," Elijah says, turning to stare down his sister. "I will go with you. We must approach slowly."

"But it's Lilah!" Rebekah says, grabbing onto her brother's arm. "It's her, I know her face!"

"It's her face," Elijah agrees. "But remember, she was Tatiana's cousin. She's part of the Petrova bloodline." He grips her arm a bit tighter in fear that she would slip away if he didn't keep her in place.

Rebekah faulters, coming into herself a bit. She looks over at Elijah and nods slowly, rubbing away the remnant tears from the corners of her eyes without messing up her make-up.  
"The Petrova bloodline... yes," She mumbles, rubbing at her forehead. She blinks a few times before looking over at Elijah, her eyebrows pulling together tightly. "But she's not the doppelganger." A pause, then, "Is she? I thought that it was Tatiana, though..."

"Yes," Elijah admits, "I thought so too. But I suppose we are going to have to see." He makes his way through the crowd after he released Rebekah's arm. She follows closely behind without fail but it seems like she's going to let him do all the talking. She grabs onto his sleeve in a thinly veiled attempt to keep herself in check as she follows behind Elijah on his heels.

***

"Matt, I'm going to go see if Mike has the stuff, are you coming?" Caroline asks, twisting around to look at her friend as he stops to talk to some of the other jocks. One was a football player and the other was basketball. He waves his hand a bit to show he heard her but is much more engrossed in the conversation with the guys than following her over to the bar.  
Caroline stares at him for a moment longer before groaning, waving her hand dismissively and walking over to the bar and leaning against it, waiting for the bartender to notice her. 

He does after a moment and holds up a finger to get her to wait while he finishes up with what he's doing. Caroline nods, turning to look over the rest of the pub so the bartender doesn't have to deal with her eyes burrowing holes through him.

She looks around the room seeing a few friends in the corner of the room. She smiles when they meet her eyes and offer little waves of their own to match hers. She rubs at the back of her head, running her fingers through the back of her curly blond hair wondering if someone can loan her a hair tie to put it up or if she's able to just deal with it until she gets home.

Everyone is still enjoying their last few days of freedom before heading back to school so they are making the best of it. The pub is usually a safe place to go for high schoolers to have some fun and hang out. It was safe, close to town and everyone was usually pretty close to their house or the house of someone that they trusted enough to care for them in alcohol manages to find its way into their hands. She's had a few instances like that, where she needed someone to trust to walk home with her.

That person was usually Bonnie.

"Caroline," the bartender calls, leaning against the bar on the other side, pulling her out of her thoughts. "Did you need something?"

Caroline turns back around to look at him. "Yeah, we need the stuff John promised. I'm the carrier bird today." She flashes him a bright white smile.

He nods. "Yeah, I remember he said something. Let me see if I can find it. I think he left it all in a box somewhere. Give me a second." He walks over to the other side of the bar, talks to one of the girls. She nods and moves behind the bar to keep making drinks while he disappears into the back.

Caroline leans against the bar, running her fingers through her hair, hating to imagine the rest of her day is going to be just as exhausting as the first half of it. She still had so many stops to make still and just the thought of it has worn her out. She drops her forehead onto the counter and lets out a low groan.

"Are you alright?"

Caroline snaps her spine straight, throwing her head back in a way that possibly made her look possessed. She turns large blue eyes toward the dark-haired gentleman next to her in a pressed dark blue suit. There was a white shirt underneath with no tie, yet he looked like he was ready to walk into a fancy, five-star restaurant regardless of it not being there.

He turns dark brown eyes toward her, blinking slowly. There was a furrow to his brow that was ever so slight.

There was a woman hanging off his arm with pretty, pin-straight blond hair and pretty blue eyes. She was dressed in jeans and black heels that gave her a good three more inches with a pretty pink top that was enviable, easily. Her make-up was light but accentuated her obvious beauty and Caroline almost immediately was in awe of her. Her eyes were wide and perfect eyebrows were hiked up toward her hairline.

Caroline feels her face turn bright red in embarrassment. She forces a huge smile and the nervous laughter behind it made her cringe.

"Hi, sorry. Am I in your way?" Caroline asks, despite a majority of the rest of the bar being easily accessible.

"No," the man says, reigning in his surprise at her sudden movement and watching her closely. "I was just worried that you weren't doing alright. Do you need to sit down." He makes to pull out one of the bar stools for her. The woman pulls her arm away to stop from hampering his movements and gives him a small step of space so that he can do as he said, her eyes locked on Caroline's face.

Caroline, embarrassed and wishing she could fall into a hole, shakes her head and waves her hands around. "Oh no, don't worry about me! I'm okay, really." In her mind, though, she made note of his accent. Definitely something from across the sea. Maybe London? She was terrible with accents. But it's definitely not from these parts.

The woman tilts her head, eyebrows falling neutral as the man lets go of the chair slowly, still studying her face. "Are you certain, Miss...?"

"Caroline," Caroline says automatically. "Caroline Forbes." She holds out her hand for him. "It's nice to meet you." God, she hopes her hands aren't sweaty. It's too late to wipe them off on her jeans if they are.

The man looks at her hand a moment as if confused by the action before he takes his giving it a delicate shake that seemed more for her benefit than his own. If her palm was sweaty, he made no show of it, to which she's thankful for. "Elijah," he says, delicately shaking her hand. "Elijah Mikaelson." He stares into her eyes as if waiting for something.

Caroline smiles a little bit easier, trying to push on with the conversation and forget the last two minutes. "Nice to meet you," Caroline says after a moment of silence, before looking over at the woman, still staring with big, innocent blue eyes. She looks like she could be around Caroline's age, maybe a few years older, like twenty-one, but that's a stretch. "Are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?" Or married, she didn't know.

The question broke the woman out of her continued staring by looking equal parts hurt and disgusted. "What? No. I'm Elijah's little sister. I'm Rebekah." A pause, then her voice softens as she reaches out for Caroline's newly freed hand as if longing to touch her. "Rebekah Mikaelson."

Caroline is embarrassed again, flushing, but tries to push through it. "I'm sorry. I have horrible word vomit. I just say things and don't think. I'm sorry." Rebekah's grip on her hand was just as gentle, if not a bit forlorn. She wraps her hand around Carolines and doesn't look like she wants to let go, even though both of them are bent sort of strangely around Elijah and over the corner of the counter.

Rebekah shakes her head slowly, eyebrows pulling inward. "Don't worry yourself over silly things, darling. It's an honest mistake." She looks reluctant to let go of Caroline's hand after perhaps a moment too long.

Caroline stares into her pretty face, unable to help herself, feeling like she has to say something. "I'm sorry if this is weird, but I just can't get over how pretty you are."  
Rebekah blinks once, twice, three times before this look crosses her face of both happiness and pain. "You think so?"

Caroline nods, pushing some loose curls behind her ears. "Yes. I think we should say it more when we see things we like. Girls, I mean. We should empower each other."  
Rebekah's expression softens, sweetly. "Thank you, Caroline. It... means a lot to me to hear you say that. I think you are exceptionally beautiful yourself."

Despite what she said, the compliment made Caroline flush in embarrassment yet again. She pushes past it with a humbled, "Thank you." Before she forces the feeling done and points out the obvious in order to move on from this part of the conversation, "You guys definitely aren't from around here."

"Would you believe that we were born here long ago?" Elijah asks, curiously, having been quiet and thoughtful throughout their exchange.

"Really?" Caroline asks, surprised. "I guess you can never judge, even by accents."

Elijah's thin smile actually looks nice on him. It looks like he doesn't smile a lot, which is sad, he's got a pretty one. At least of the small bit that Caroline can see of it.

"We moved around a lot," Rebekah says dismissively, uninterested in any of that.

Elijah nods slowly in agreement, straightening out his cuffs in thought before looking into Caroline's eyes and asking, "What about you, Caroline? How long have you been in Mystic Falls?"

"Born and raised," Caroline says with a hint of pride. As ready as she was to leave this little town, she was still proud of it. The closeness, the community, there wasn't a lot of places one could find something like that. She was very fortunate and humbled to have it. She pulls herself from her thoughts and focuses in on the siblings once more, "So, what brings you back to Mystic Falls?"

"Business," Elijah says easily. "Our family has some business here in Mystic Falls for the foreseeable future."

"Well, since it's been a while since you guys have been here, I could give you the grand tour, if you wanted?" Caroline offers, giving them a smile.

"Yes," Rebekah says before Elijah can even open his mouth again. "I would love to get a tour." They both share a look but Caroline can't decipher their mental conversation. Rebekah looks back over at Caroline. "Are you free tonight?"

"No," Caroline sighs, hating to turn the other down so fast after making the offer herself. "I have to finish up with preparation for the beginning of the year donation drive. I'm going to do as much as I can today so that I can enjoy the end of my summer before school starts again." She rubs at her forehead again, looking around to see that the bartender hasn't come back yet. "I will have some time tomorrow, though, if you want to do it then?" Caroline turns her eyes back toward Rebekah. "If that's okay? Oh, and you are more than welcome to come along too, Elijah."

"Tomorrow is good for me," Rebekah says, smiling happily. It's a pretty smile that lights up her beautiful face. She must really want to make a new friend. Caroline was happy to oblige.

The older man seems like he was about to deny her when something catches his eye. He opens his mouth, about to say something when a voice from over Caroline's shoulder snarls, "Charles is going to regret this run around when I find him."

"Niklaus," Elijah says, holding out his hand toward Caroline.

"Hear me, Elijah, this had better not be a fool's errand or I'm going to - "

"Nik!" Rebekah snaps, her blue eyes wide as she pointed looks at Caroline. Her pleading, big eyes turn back to the person in question as she says softly, "Come meet our new friend, Nik."

Caroline turns, holding her hand out for the man to take. "Hello," she says softly, "my name is Caroline Forbes."

The man turns his narrow-eyed glare from Elijah down to Caroline, then back to Elijah just to shoot back to Caroline. His jaw drops for a split second before snapping shut and then just hanging open slightly like he was trying to form words but didn't remember how. He looks down at her hand, stunned, before mutely taking it and shaking it slowly as he studied Caroline's face. He shifts his entire body to face her as he looks her up and down, trying to understand what he sees.

His eyes are blue and his hair is dark blond, making him resemble Rebekah far more than he looks like Elijah, but Caroline can see the resemblance now that she knows that at least two of them are siblings. His hair was unlike the two of theirs which was straight and tame, his was messy and curled around his neckline and ears. It's safe to assume this is yet another one of the siblings. He was dressed much more relaxed with jeans, tennis shoes and a long sleeve v-neck black shirt that is rolled up to his elbows and low dip to the neckline that shows off the start of a strong chest with a few necklaces and bracelets on his wrists.

After a moment of silence, Elijah swiftly steps in by saying, "Caroline, this is my brother, Niklaus. Brother, this is Caroline Forbes."

"It's nice to meet you," Caroline says softly, staring into his pretty blue eyes. In the light, she swears there are touches of green near the irises. Elijah was handsome, Rebekah was gorgeous and Niklaus was a beautiful man if Caroline has ever seen one. She hesitates for a moment, wondering how his name would sound on her own lips before saying, "Niklaus."

Rebekah blinks slowly, a tilt to her head as she stares at the side of Niklaus's head with her hands wringing at her stomach while Elijah gets a peculiar look on his face as if remembering something both fondly, and sadly.

Her use of his name seemed to have pulled him from whatever he was trying to uncover from her face because he closes his hand around her own more securely, offers this smooth, gentle, yet guarded smile, before bringing her hand up to his lips and kissing the back of it. "Hello, love. I'm sorry. I was distracted by your beauty that I didn't catch your name."

Caroline raises an eyebrow, flattered and embarrassed by the treatment and his words. "Caroline Forbes."

"Caroline," Niklaus says softly as if her voice was a secret prayer that only he could hear. "A beautiful name."

Caroline smiles at that as Niklaus slowly releases her hand, almost looking like he didn't want to. "Thanks," she looks down at the ground for a moment, feeling the blush washing over her cheeks again before looking around the three siblings, trying not to be overwhelmed by their combined beauty and trying to ignore the way Niklaus is staring at her face with this smug, yet longing look in his eyes. "So there's three then, huh? All three siblings?"

"Our brother Kol is here too," Rebekah says, giving the side of Niklaus's head a sweet look, before glancing over her shoulder. "Kol is right over..." She blinks a few times, her eyes scanning the pub to see that Kol was nowhere in sight. "Where did he go?"

The brothers both blink, share a look and then turn to survey the pub to find this wayward brother of theirs.

"Kol," Niklaus grows, furrowing his brows angrily.

"We'll find him. Surely he's wondered off again," Elijah says diplomatically, placing a hand on Niklaus's shoulder that seems to ease a bit of his agitation.

"You alright, Caroline?"

Caroline turns to see the bartender back, placing a large box onto the bar just out of the way so that he can talk to her. He gives Elijah and Niklaus mistrusting looks before turning his attention back toward the seventeen-year-old girl.

"I'm okay, Mike," Caroline says, offering him a genuine smile. Mike is one of the cheerleaders, Abby's, older brother. Caroline has known him for about three years now. "Is this everything?" She nods to the box.

"As far as I know," Mike says, shrugging his shoulders. "If there's anything else, I'm sure John will just bring it to you himself. Is this your last stop for the day?"

Caroline lets out a long, dramatic sigh. "Oh, I wish. I still have a ton more places to stop before tomorrow. Knowing my luck, I'm going to be out all night running around this town." 

She was being over-dramatic, but it sort of didn't feel like it.

Mike looks worried. "Just stop before it gets too dark. I hear there has been a lot of animal attacks recently. You shouldn't be wandering around alone after dark, alright?"

"I'll be fine," Caroline says, rolling her eyes. "Besides, I'll have Matt with me. I'm not going to be alone. So don't worry."

"Yeah, well, just be careful, okay? A lot of people have been attacked these last few weeks and I would hate for something to happen. Just be careful until they catch whatever animal is attacking people, alright?" Mike asks seriously.

Caroline mock salutes the bartender. "Sure thing, Sheriff."

Mike rolls his eyes, about to retort when the girl that took over the bar says that she's heading back out onto the floor. He nods, waving her away before turning back toward Caroline.

Elijah lays his arm across the bartop, suddenly looking interested in the conversation. "What are we talking about? Animal attacks?" He looks between Mike and Caroline, waiting for someone to answer him.

"Recently there have been a string of animal attacks all over Mystic Falls," Mike says. Elijah, Niklaus, and Rebekah all share looks, no longer concerned about their missing brother. 

"They think they were either wolves or bears but no one really knows for certain." A guest comes up to the bar, calling for his attention. He gives them a little wave and heads over to keep working.

Caroline looks over at Rebekah. "I'm not too worried because I know my way around, but you should be careful, Rebekah, okay?"

Rebekah looks amused for a moment before controlling her expression and nodding somberly. "I can take care of myself, but thank you, Caroline." Her smile is sweet and genuine.

Niklaus leans in close enough that Caroline can feel the heat of his body on her arm. She looks up into his eyes as he says, "Can you tell us anything more about these... animal attacks, Caroline?"

Caroline shakes her head. "Nothing, really. Just that they happen at night and usually when the person is alone or in a small group of two."

"Then perhaps you should save the rest of your work until daylight tomorrow," Elijah cuts in slowly, giving Niklaus a sideways look. "You and this Matt don't sound like you will be any more protected then anyone else was."

"Well," Caroline says slowly, "the attacks haven't really happened inside the town, which is where I'm staying, but I do want to get as much done today as possible. But if I have to do more tomorrow, that's what I signed up for, I suppose." Caroline shrugs her shoulders, letting out a little sigh, resigned to her fate. She knew it would drive her mother up the wall if she were to be attacked by some wild animal while knowing that there is an advisory out asking people to remain indoors after dark or to travel in larger groups of five or six.

Rebekah blinks before offering, "I could help you out tomorrow. Seeing as your Matt friend is nowhere to be seen." She gives a bland look, crossing her arms over her chest.

Caroline looks over at Matt, still laughing and talking with his friends. "Well, he's a bit preoccupied, but he's helping." She looks back over at Rebekah, "And I couldn't ask you to help me. You're new here and you don't even go to our school." She pauses, realizing she doesn't know that for certain. "Or do you? Are you going to Mystic Falls High?"

Rebekah opens her mouth, about to say something, when it appears as though something occurs to her, and she nods. "I am, actually. I was hoping to stop by the school tomorrow..." She hesitates, tucking a pin-straight strand of long blond hair behind her ear, looking at Caroline through long, thick lashes. "Would you be able to show me?"

Caroline smiles back at her, nodding. "I would love to."

"Then, in return, I'll help you with whatever it is that you are doing tomorrow," Rebekah says smugly.

"Getting a tour tomorrow, are we?" Niklaus asks, giving his sister a pointed stare.

"We are," Rebekah says easily, gesturing between herself and Elijah while staring at him with a raised eyebrow and an amused expression that Niklaus doesn't appear to share. "But you are not."

Niklaus looks over at Caroline, pinning her in place with this intense, powerful gaze. He leans in a little bit closer, looking Caroline up and down, making her skin tingle at every inch his eyes touched. She had to fight the urge to wrap her arms around herself. It's like those pretty eyes could stare right through her. They made her feel weak and small like her heart and soul are laying bare before this titanous man.

He's powerful, Caroline can sense it. She just can't figure out in what sense. Not yet.

"Caroline, sweetheart, you wouldn't mind showing me around too, would you?" He pierces her with his gaze alone. He studies her expression closely.

He's a predator, Caroline can see it in his eyes. A real hunter. He can easily make Caroline feel an inch tall. There is something absolutely lethal about him. He's definitely more than a devastatingly pretty face.

Caroline offers him a smile that stirs something in those bluish-green eyes. "No, Niklaus. I wouldn't. Please join us tomorrow."

That strange, foreign emotion swims in his eyes as he leans in closer, a smile working its way across his lips. "Excellent, love. I am happy to hear it." His eyes lock onto hers for a long moment. "Oh, and Caroline," Niklaus says, drawing out her name, "call me Klaus."


	2. Meeting Up

Lilah pets down the hair of one of the little boys next to her before standing up and making her way over to the two brothers. She smiles at Kol once she gets close, he pulls a pretty flower from behind his back and offers it to her. Lilah's blue eyes widen in surprise and accept the flower, smelling it lovingly. She admires it for a moment before sticking it behind her ear.

"Thank you, Kol, that was so sweet of you," she says softly.

"Just remember which one of us gave you the beautiful flower and which one stood around with a silly look on his face," Kol says, grinning over at his older brother.

Niklaus glares at his brother before looking over at Lilah staring up at him with a sweet smile. His eyes drop to the dirt, looking around at anything but her. Lilah shares a look with Kol, eyebrows pulling together slightly before leaning toward Niklaus and pushing a few loose strands of long blond hair behind his ear. The gentle act draws his greenish-blue eyes up to her own, even if it was through long, dark lashes.

He smiles hesitantly. "Hello, Lilah."

Lilah pulls her hand away, still staring up into Niklaus's eyes. "Hello, Niklaus." The slightly older blond blinks a few times before smiling thinly at the girl in front of him, there was a nervousness to it. It's endearing, making Lilah smile a little bit more. She watches his eyes look around at everything but her before asking, softly, "How are you today, Niklaus?"

He blinks a few more times before dragging his eyes up to meet hers and offers a more secure smile. "I'm doing fine. I hope you are as well."

Lilah nods, eyes cresting with her smile. "I'm good, actually. Thank you for asking."

Her smile seems to give him more courage. "Would you... like to take a walk with me?"

"Scandalous, brother," Kol jests, grinning over Lilah's shoulder at the oldest of the three of them. "A walk, alone, with a pretty girl? What would our mother think? Our father, even?"

Niklaus glares at him, lips curved down a bit in the corners, opening his mouth to defend his words when Lilah cuts in, "Don't worry about me, Kol. Niklaus is, and always has been, an absolute gentleman. I am not worried in the slightest." She turns her blue eyes toward the younger brother. "Kol, you don't mind if I take your brother with me, do you?"

"No," Kol says, "not at all, Lilah. Take him away."

Kol grins devilishly while Niklaus looks humbled and embarrassed. He reaches up and smooths back the loose, stubborn wayward strands of blond hair behind his ear only for it to fall back into place a moment later. Lilah holds out a hand for Niklaus to take. He hesitates, for only a moment, before reaching out and wrapping his larger hand around her smaller one. 

"Let's go," Lilah says, gripping his hand tightly. "Lead the way. I will go wherever you wish."

***

"Klaus..." Caroline tests his name on her lips. That strange emotion swims in his eyes again as the crooked smile widens a bit more. His greenish-blue eyes study her closely as if seeing something... captivating. But, he was looking at Caroline, so that can't be it. There has to be something else. Something that she hasn't thought of yet. But she's not sure.

"Yes, darling?" Klaus asks, eyes widening slightly with intensity.

Caroline feels her cheeks darken at his closeness. She puts her hands out onto his chest, pushing him back a bit. "You are so close." He yields to her weak little push, taking a step back and out of her space. She laughs, shaking her head at the boyish smile he sends her way.

"Sorry, love," he says easily, ignoring the look the Elijah was giving to the side of his head.

She digs into her pocket and pulls out her phone, pulling up a new contact before handing it over to Rebekah. "Give me your number, okay? I'll text you tonight so we can set up a time to meet here again tomorrow."

Rebekah happily takes her phone and puts her number into it, a smile nearly splitting her face in two. "Wonderful idea."

Finally speaking up again, Elijah nobly asks, "Do you need any assistance taking that to your car?" He nods toward the big box on the bar. Caroline eyes it, filled over the top with stuff for the donation drive and her lips purse, wondering if she's going to be able to carry it herself.

Then she remembered that she wasn't alone. "Oh," Caroline tuns back toward the oldest of the four of them. "No, thank you, Elijah, I'm going to be okay. I actually have an errand boy here to help me," she laughs, shaking her head. She looks between the two brothers to see Matt still talking to his friends. She walks over to him, grabbing onto his arm and smiling apologetically to his friends. "Sorry guys, Matt still needs to help me. You guys can keep this testosterone fest going some other time, okay?"

"Come on, Caroline, give the guy a break!" One of Matt's friends, Justin, laughs. "You've been dragging him around all week."

Caroline stares at him, crossing her arms over her chest as the other guys laugh and agree with him. Caroline smiles sweetly, "Sure thing, Justin. How about you take his place for me?"

Matt laughs at the sudden look of regret across his friend's face. "Yeah, Justin, be a sport. Give me a break." Justin starts shaking his head and Matt laughs again, slinging his arm around Caroline's shoulders. "Don't worry about it, guys. I'm heading out now, though. See you later."

"You can have him back tomorrow," Caroline throws over her shoulder as she and Matt head for the bar where the three siblings are still standing. Rebekah and Elijah are staring at the side of Klaus's head while he frowns at them. The guys cheer behind them as Matt drops his arm from around her shoulders, smiling at the three siblings.

Hey," Matt says, glancing over at Caroline. "Friends of yours, Caroline?"

"I met them just now, actually." She gestures from sibling to sibling. "Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah Mikaelson. They just got into town so make sure to make them feel welcome, okay?" She gives his ribs a little jab and raises her eyebrows, expectantly.

Matt offers a hand to Klaus to shake and for a moment, Caroline wondered if he wasn't going to do it, then that frown turns into a smooth smirk and he takes Matt's hand easily. "Pleasure, mate."

Elijah takes his hand without hesitation, nodding once in greeting. Meanwhile, Rebekah's smile is small and timid as a small blush works its way over her face, murmuring a soft, "Hello."

Matt pulls his hand back and offers the three siblings an award-winning smile that he is well known for. "It's nice to meet you all. Welcome to Mystic Falls. I'm Matt Donovan. Let me know if you guys need anything, too. Now," he looks over at Caroline, "sorry about that. What did you need?"

Caroline points at the box just over Klaus's shoulder. "That box, please. To my car."

"Yes ma'am," Matt says, sparing the Mikaelson siblings another respectful nod before walking over and lifting the box with a little groan. Now Caroline is happy she didn't attempt to take it out there by herself. She wouldn't want to drop and break anything.

Caroline raises an eyebrow. "You got it?"

"Yep," Matt says, walking past her and heading for the exit.

Caroline shakes her head, figuring she should go help him. "Well, I'd better run too. I will text you tonight, Rebekah." She looks over at the female Mikaelson. Rebekah nods, looking a little sad that they would have to part so soon.

"Be safe out there. Make sure you get home before dark," Rebekah says, ominously, a strange look passing over her face. "All sorts of monsters and baddies make their living playing around in the dark. I don't want anything to happen to you."

Caroline feels her heart swell a bit, unable to believe such a nice girl appeared before her while she's so far down in the dumps. She really needed this pick-me-up. She hopes that Rebekah can see the sincerity in her smile. "Thank you, Rebekah. And you too. All of you, I mean," Caroline looks at Elijah and Klaus so that they both know she meant them too, "stay safe out there." With that, she offers a little wave, turns and heads for the door.

She's about halfway there when Rebekah calls out her name. She looks over to see the youngest of the three Mikaelson's jogging up to her with her phone outstretched in her hand. "You almost left without this."

Caroline blinks in surprise, taking her phone back. "Thanks! I would be panicking later if I couldn't find it." She stuffs it into her pocket. "I'll see you tomorrow, Rebekah."

"Yes, tomorrow," Rebekah says softly. Caroline could barely hear her over the din in the room. "It's a promise, then."

Caroline nods, looking up to the two brothers, giving them a wave before touching Rebekah's shoulder and heading out the door and towards her car where she can see Matt is   
waiting for her by the trunk. She jogs across the street, heading toward him when she sees him frown unhappily at her.

"What?" She asks once she gets close.

"You didn't even look to see if any cars were coming, Caroline. Be careful," Matt chastizes.

Caroline blinks a few times as she opens the trunk of her car, not able to remember if she had done it or not, now. It's just one of those things she doesn't think about. But she's pretty sure she did. She just didn't register anything she saw.

"Yes, I did," she says.

"No, you didn't," Matt argues, placing the box into the trunk of Caroline's car. "Just because you're the Sheriff's daughter doesn't make you invincible. Be careful, okay?"

"Okay," Caroline says, not wanting to argue. She doesn't really remember, so maybe she didn't. She'll just have to be more careful next time. And she doesn't want Matt to worry, either. He's so used to taking care of his mom and sister, that worrying about people is just in his nature. She knows he means well, and he was watching her, so maybe he's right. 

"I'm sorry, Matt. I guess I'm just distracted."

"Was it the new guys?" Matt asks as he closes the trunk of her car, no longer angry.

"No, they were nice," Caroline says.

A moment of hesitation before Matt looks over at her, sunlight catching his dark blue eyes just right to make them stand out. "Is this about Elena?"

Caroline's not sure how to answer that. She's been trying to reach out to Elena all summer and hasn't really gotten a response from her. She knows that Elena just needs time to adjust, and Caroline certainly doesn't want to push her, but Caroline has the sneaking suspicion that Bonnie has seen Elena more than she has. Which she understands, Bonnie and   
Elena are best friends, but... well, honestly, Caroline is feeling really left out.

Which she shouldn't. It's selfish and unreasonable. And it could just be her insecurity talking. It's probably nothing. She's probably just overthinking it, or letting her imagination run away with her. Once school starts again, she'll be able to see Bonnie and Elena every day and all that loneliness will have felt silly. And besides, Bonnie has been helping with her Grams all summer too. But she still made time for Caroline, so it's not like she's alone, or anything. Just overdramatic. And maybe a bit insecure. Just a little bit.

"No," Caroline says, not sure if she's technically lying or not. It's not all about Elena, in fact, all of it is about her. She's just too in her head. "I'm just thinking about a lot of things, is all."

Matt nods slowly, "Well, I'm here if you need anything."

Caroline smiles at her friend. "Thank you, Matt."

***

"Okay, I think this is going to be the last stop for the night," Caroline says, rubbing at the back of her shoulders, feeling exhausted. And she still has so much more to do tomorrow, on top of showing Rebekah and her brothers around. Which reminds her, she's going to have to send Rebekah a text before it gets too late.

"Are you sure?" Matt asks as Caroline turns down his street to drop him off at his house. "I mean, I could keep going if you wanted to get more done." He looks over at her as she pulls up into his driveway.

"I'm tired," Caroline admits, still rubbing at one of her shoulders, putting the car in park. "Thank you for coming with me today."

"Are you sure that you aren't going to need me tomorrow? I can cancel my plans. We didn't end up getting as much done today as I was hoping," he says honestly, rubbing at the back of his head. He turns those dark blue eyes on Caroline, ready to do as he said. Matt is such a good guy. No matter what, Caroline could always count on Matt to help her out. 

Especially since Bonnie was supposed to be the one to help her today, but that fell through.

Caroline was happy to get help, especially since she called Matt on a whim and he was actually willing to help her out last minute.

"I'm okay, Rebekah offered to help me tomorrow. Plus her brothers are going to be there so they may help a bit. I'm going to give them a tour while running my errands, so it'll be a double knock-out," Caroline says. Matt laughs, shaking his head a bit.

"Double knock-out, right."

"Get out," Caroline says mirthfully, grinning at the blue-eyed boy. "And thanks again for the help, Matt. I do appreciate it."

Matt offers her a sweet smile. "No problem, Caroline. Just... let me know if you need me, okay?"

Caroline nods. "Will do." With that, Matt climbs out of her car as she pulls her phone out of her pocket and searches for Rebekah's name in her contacts. "Ooh. She spells it so pretty," Caroline murmurs to herself before texting, "It's Caroline! Sorry for the late message. What time do you guys want to meet up tomorrow?"

She closes her phone and sets it into the cupholder between the seats and pulls out of Matt's driveway, heading down the street toward her home. About halfway there, she hears her phone vibrate against the hard plastic and has to fight the immediate urge to check it, remembering her mom constantly droning on in her ear that if she was ever caught texting and driving, she was losing her phone. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Once she gets home, she parks her car and grabs her phone from the cup holder to see Rebekah replied, "No problem. We're good at any time tomorrow."

Caroline looks at the time on her phone to see that it's about ten-thirty and tries to decide how much sleep she wants to try and get tonight. She would like to try and sleep in but seeing as she still has so much left to do tomorrow, she might as well try and get as early a start as she can. The more she gets done tomorrow, the less she has to do later. In a perfect world, she'll finish it all tomorrow, but she still has to decorate the gym before Monday, which was four days from today, going to be three within a few hours, and then clean it all up before that following Wednesday when school officially starts.

Caroline lets out a long, drawn-out groan, already exhausted just thinking about it. And on top of all that, once school starts, she's not going to get a break. She's going to have school work, and being cheer captain on top of all the extra stuff she knows she's going to sign up for because she has no self-control and has this compulsive need to just fill the empty space of time with needless activities and fruitless ventures simply to keep from being alone and feeling left out.

She sinks back into her chair, staring at her phone, trying to decide what to do. Before she can change her mind, she quickly types out, "Awesome! How about we meet back up at The Grill by 11:30 for an early lunch and then we can go from there. Sound good?"

She waits until Rebekah replies with, "Sounds great! I can't wait!"

"I still have a lot to do tomorrow. You're still good with helping me out a bit, right? If you're going to back out, now would be the time."

Honestly, Caroline didn't figure that Rebekah would back out, seeing as she was pretty insistent on helping without even being asked, but she figured she would give the girl one more chance to change her mind. If she was going to help Caroline, she was going to make her work. That included her brothers. She could do with some muscle to help. She knows she could probably handle all of it alone, but she would definitely appreciate the company.

Caroline lays her head back against her headrest, feeling her eyes get heavy just from sitting there. Her radio is so soft that even in the silence she can barely hear it, and just as she's starting to drift off, her phone goes off again.

"You're stuck with me. I'm not backing out. Besides, my brothers will be there to help us if we need a little bit of heavy lifting."

Caroline laughs. It sounds loud in the otherwise quiet of her car. She was just thinking about Rebekah's brothers coming along. And it's like she pulled the thoughts right out of Caroline's head. Honestly, she is amazed. What if Rebekah was somehow in Caroline's head. Or that this was some kind of cosmic connection that they were meant to become really good friends. Either way, Caroline hopes that this would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the two of them.

She rubs at her face again once her laughter dies out into silence, already dreading the long day tomorrow.

"Sounds great! I'm going to try and get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow!"

Caroline grabs her purse and steps out of her car into the dark, warm night air. She closes the door and heads into her house, very acutely aware that her mother's police car isn't in the driveway, meaning she's coming home late tonight or she won't be back until morning. So, once more, Caroline is going to be alone until the unforeseeable future.

***

Despite her wishes, Caroline is sitting in the blazing hot shower as it turns her fair skin beat red as the water washing down her back and neck, when her alarm goes off, cutting off her music. She pulls the curtain back, turns off the alarm so that the music comes back on before pulling the curtain back in place and settling back under the spray.

Her eyes droop closed and she wishes that she could just go back to sleep under the spray but knew she had a long day ahead of her. She is already so tired of today and it hasn't even really begun.

Despite her fatigue, Caroline turns off the shower, gets out and starts getting ready. She braids her hair, brushes her teeth, puts on a little bit of make-up to cover what she's suspecting is dark circles forming under her eyes and changes into a simple t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. She stares at her face in the mirror, hating how tired she looks, so she puts on some distracting, dangling earrings and a few bracelets.

She finishes up getting ready and heads out the door. She stops when she sees her mom's cop car in the driveway. She steps back inside, leaves a message for her mom and then heads back out again to head to The Grill. She manages to make it there about twenty minutes early and was surprised to see that Elijah, Klaus, and Rebekah were already there.

Rebekah's pretty face is twisted into an unhappy frown until her blue eyes flicker up over Klaus's head and lock onto Caroline walking in through the front door. She blinks a few times as if trying to see something she wasn't sure was there before a smile breaks across her face and she hops up from her side of the booth to go greet Caroline.

The other girl's bright smile is enough to make Caroline feel a little bit better and she can't help but walk right into Rebekah's arms and hug her back. It's so strange, they just met, yet Caroline can't help but feel like she's been friends with Rebekah for a lifetime. Admittedly, Rebekah couldn't have come into Caroline's life at a better time. It's silly how lonely she's been feeling these last few months. She's tried so hard to ignore it, but in doing so, she's wearing herself pretty thin doing anything and everything that could take her mind off of those feelings.

She hates, feeling like she's using Rebekah's kindness, but she was so happy that this girl was here. She smells great, like vanilla, with her blond hair straight, light make-up, white shorts, white tennis shoes, and a black and gold shimmering top. She looks so cute. As Caroline pulls back to arm's length, she has to take a second to admire the other girl's beauty.

"You look so pretty, Rebekah!" Caroline says, her eyes wide.

Rebekah flushes a bit, smiling shyly. "Thank you! You look great, too!"

"Thanks," Caroline says, running her hand over one of her braids, feeling frumpy once more. "You guys are here early. I thought I was going to be early but you guys beat me here."

"Rebekah was so excited to see you that she insisted that we show up early," Klaus says, turned around in his side of the booth to grin at his little sister as she shoots daggers back at him with her own eyes. "She simply couldn't wait."

"I didn't see you dragging your heels to get here either, Nik," she shoots back, pouty lips slow blinks at her but it's too late, she's already turned away from him so fast her hair flips with the motion, turning her pretty eyes on Caroline. "Are you hungry? Do you want to grab something to eat first?"

"I am starved," Caroline admits, following the slightly older girl over to the booth her two brothers were sitting in and sits across from Klaus while Rebekah sits across from Elijah. "I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday. If you guys don't mind?"

"Not at all," Elijah says easily, lacing his fingers on the table with ease and grace. The white dress shirt he's wearing stretches across his chest a bit. "How are you doing this fine morning, Caroline?"

"Exhausted," slips from her lips faster than she can think, so she quickly adds, "but I'm good. I just had a long day yesterday and another long one today. I hope Rebekah told you that this tour came with some heavy lifting involved because if you're going to back out, now is the time to do it." She touches the wet ends of her braids absentmindedly.

Rebekah rolls her eyes. "A little heavy lifting isn't going to hurt them, trust me." Elijah and Klaus share a look that Caroline doesn't understand.

"Hey, Caroline," Victoria says, stopping at the table. She gives a nice long look at Elijah and Klaus, blinking her big blue eyes a few times no doubt able to tell this level of handsome doesn't usually find itself in Mystic Falls. Her smile is pretty and friendly, reminding Caroline so much of Matt's smile as she says, "What can I get you guys to drink?"

"Water, please," Caroline says, spinning a loose blond curl.

"Water is fine for me," Rebekah says, giving Victoria a once over without expression on her face.

"Nothing for me, thank you," Elijah says.

"I'll have your finest bourbon," Klaus says, easily, pushing up his long, black sleeves to his elbows.

"Starting early today, are we, brother?" Elijah asks, raising an eyebrow.

Klaus turns a hearty, smug gaze toward the oldest of the five of them, a smile quirked at the corner of his lips. "I think today is going to be a good day, Elijah. We should celebrate." 

He looks over at his older brother. "You should join me."

Elijah looks like he's going to deny the blond but then a thought seems to occur to him as he's staring into the eyes of his brother. After a moment of hesitation, he nods. "Okay. One for me as well, please."

Victoria nods, writing it down on her pad of paper before she turns to leave, and stops a second before looking back over at Caroline, almost like she wanted to say something, before deciding against it and leaving. Caroline watches her go, wondering what that look could have been about. She feels Rebekah's eyes on her and answers her unasked question,   
"I have no idea what that was about. Probably about how late I got Matt home last night." A moment's pause. Then she elaborates, "Victoria is Matt's sister."

"Very nice," Klaus says, "and how late were you and Mr. Donovan out last night, pre tell?"

Caroline sinks backward into the booth just thinking about it. "I didn't end up getting home until like ten-thirty." She rubs at her shoulder, already feeling the fatigue build up once more. "And I couldn't sleep so I was up early..." she sighs. "Needless to say, I am not having an awesome last couple of days." She shrugs off that feeling and offers a smile around the table. "Alright, so, in between stores yesterday I made a list of places to visit both in Mystic Falls and if you guys are interested in the advanced tour this place has some interesting spots."

Rebekah's eyes brighten with interest. "The advanced tour, please!" A mischevious look crosses her face. "And since we used to live here a long time ago, maybe there are some places that we know about that may amaze you."

A part of Caroline kind of doubts that, seeing as she's lived in Mystic Falls her entire life, but at the same time, how was she to know? Maybe they will be able to surprise her.

"I look forward to it," Caroline says as Vicki returns with their drinks. Caroline orders herself some food but the three siblings all deny it. "What, not hungry?" Caroline asks.

"This is my meal," Klaus says, raising his drink a bit.

Vicki nods and leaves once more. Caroline feels weird about being the only one who was going to be eating and was almost ready to call Vicki back and tell her nevermind about the order. She'll just wait until she gets home later tonight to eat something, but he thought of food makes Caroline's stomach growl rather loudly, forcing her to accept that her body will only listen to her after she's fed it. She wraps her arms around her stomach and instead asks something she had been thinking about since the previous night. "So, did you end up finding your brother from yesterday? Is he okay?"

"Who? Kol?" Rebekah asks, her eyebrows pulled together tightly. "He's fine. He went home."

"Home?" Caroline echoes. "Did he go back to where you guys moved from this last time?"

"No," Elijah cut in, staring down at his for a moment before taking a leisure sip. "We purchased a home right outside of Mystic Falls. We're fixing it up right now but once it is presentable - "

"You should definitely come over," Rebekah says cheerfully, her blue eyes bright and happy. As if sensing the question floating around in Caroline's mind, Rebekah, ashamed, says softly, "I don't have any friends. We moved around so much, Nik, Elijah, and I, so..." she takes a deep breath, avoiding her brothers' gazes from across the table, "I hope you can forgive me for coming on too strong."

Caroline smiles, bumping her shoulder with Rebekah's. "I understand. And hey, I'm not exactly in the position to be turning away friends. In fact, you came at the perfect time. I don't have much of an excuse for anything, but I am really glad that you're here. Do you know how you can just tell that you're going to get along great with someone? I feel that with you."

Rebekah looks touched like she could actually cry just from that. "I feel it too."

Caroline laughs, linking her arm through Rebekah's and leans into her. "Don't cry, Rebekah." Rebekah laughs too, blinking the moisture from her eyes and leaning into Caroline's touch.

"I'm glad that the two of you seem to be getting along well," Elijah says as Klaus leans back in the booth, looking around the room as if bored. He swooshes his bourbon around inside the glass as his greenish-blue eyes roam the room.

"Of course," Rebekah says, laying her head onto Caroline's shoulder. "We have a connection."

Klaus blinks slowly, pulling his eyes back to the two girls sitting across from him. He leans forward, resting his forearms against the table to look at Caroline. "So, darling, tell me, what is on the agenda today?" He offers that charming half-smirk.

Caroline rolls her eyes, trying to hide the allure of that look. "It's not darling, it's Caroline."

"Someone immune to your charms, Nik?" Rebekah says, amused.

"Don't be so surprised, Rebekah," Elijah says, downing the rest of his drink. "It isn't as rare an occurrence as you may think." They make mirthful expressions at Klaus's expense. The corners of the blond's lips turn down as he looks up toward the ceiling as if it was going to somehow ease his annoyance.

Rebekah laughs and Caroline waits until his eyes find hers once more before saying, "Well, Klaus, to answer your question," she says, as the tender look slowly returns to his face, "after I eat an unnecessarily large burger and fries, I'm going to show you guys around town to the local shops to get the donations and the participation passes while giving you the tour. We can stop by the school so Rebekah can get registered and I can set up a few things that my friend Bonnie promised to drop off and..." she twirls her hand around, "...and so on and so forth." She grins at him.

"And what does this 'so on and so forth' entail, dearest Caroline?" Klaus asks, significantly more amused.

Caroline leans forward in her seat so she's mimicking Klaus's pose on the table which only seems to amuse him more as his eyes twinkle with both amusement and delight. Caroline lowers her voice a bit, like what she was saying is some sort of secret but The Grill is almost completely empty. The calm before the noon rush storm hits. "Something tells me, Klaus Mikaelson, that you aren't used to letting other people dictate your day."

Something almost resembling a smile starts to spread over his face. But just a bit before he holds it in place, carefully. "How very astute of you, love."

"Well, I'm sorry to say this, but you have entered into the Caroline Forbes grandiose tour of wonder and mystery that is Mystic Fall, and you're just gonna have to buckle up, baby, and enjoy the ride." She can't help herself but laugh. Sometimes, flirty Caroline is on point, and other times, she's just too goofy and cringe-worthy to be socially acceptable as flirting. At least successfully. This is one of the latter, but Caroline is too tired to care... and Klaus doesn't seem to mind, which is a plus.

Finally, a smile crosses his full lips. His eyes study her closely. "Very well, Caroline," he says, purposefully drawing out her name, "I'll have you know that I am difficult to impress, so my standards for today are very high." Rebekah rolls her eyes in Caroline's peripheral, which Klaus ignores with absolute grace. Elijah is quiet, watching the scene with a peculiar look on his face.

Caroline laughs again, leaning back in her chair, feeling, for the first time in a long time, that her confidence is through the roof. "I can't promise that today is going to be the greatest day of your life, but I can promise that it's probably going to be an interesting one."

"Well, I have little worry about that," Klaus says, easily.

"Thank goodness the food is here," Rebekah says as Vicki walks up with Caroline's meal. "I thought my own breakfast was going to end up on this table first."

"Mind yourself, Rebekah," Elijah chastizes.

"Yes," Klaus draws out, leaning back into his seat again. "Hardly the way for a lady to speak."

The withering look Rebekah sends her brothers could suck the moisture out of a cactus. Neither seems to mind, though. She turns to look at Caroline. "Do you see the way they treat me? Completely disrespectful."

"I guess," Caroline says mirthfully, taking a bite of a fry as an attempt to keep herself from wolfing down her burger. "But I don't have any siblings. I sort of imagine this banter comes with being a little sister." She shrugs. "But you should be nicer to your little sister. You're big brothers after all."

"Thank you," Rebekah says, crossing her arms over her chest. "See? You should be nicer to me, Nik." She turns icy blue eyes to the younger of the two brothers.

Klaus immediately looks indignant. "Come now, Rebekah. Have I not been anything but brotherly to you in your entire life? Everything I do, I do for you and for our family."

Rebekah glares at him. "We aren't going to get into this here or now, Nik. Just know that I'm still mad at you about before."

Now that was an opening that Caroline so desperately wanted to dive into to get to know the Mikaelson siblings a bit better, but figured that unfortunately, it was none of her business so she should keep her nose out of it. Unless they wanted to offer up the information, then she wouldn't mind being clued in, but despite her nature as both a busy body and as nosy, she could feel, somehow, that this was entering dangerous territory. Her feeling was confirmed with the dark look cast over all three of their faces.

Elijah spoke up with a firm, definitely, "Enough, both of you. Settle yourselves or Carline and I shall have this grandiose tour without you." The two younger siblings both stare at one another for a long moment before Rebekah backs down, leaning back in her seat and studying her nails as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. Klaus blinks slowly and looks back around the room as more and more people pile into The Grill. After he's certain that the two have quieted down for the moment, Elijah turns back toward Caroline, "Don't mind them. Take your time. Enjoy your meal. We will get started with our day once you are done."


	3. The Day

Lilah and Niklaus walk hand in hand through the forest. Each step is slow and purposeful. With her free hand, Lilah grabs hold of her dress, swooshing it back and forth a bit with each step, humming a lullaby her mother used to sing to her when she was little. Every step bumps her shoulder with his, and they would share a smile through her soft lullaby each time.

It was nice and warm out. She could hear some of the men walking around somewhere far off, having already finished with the hunt for the day, so no one cared to scare away the wildlife. If she listened close enough between each breath, Lilah could hear children playing in the village. Laughing and screaming as loud as their little voices could be.

"I love to hear your lullabies," Niklaus says quietly, reaching up with his other hand to tuck a loose strand of blond hair behind his ear.

Lilah laughs, shaking her head. "You flatter me, Niklaus, but we all know that the radiant beauty unmatched in all ways is my dearest cousin Tatiana. Now her voice is fit for making the most beautiful lullabies even more beautiful, still."

Niklaus shakes his head. "No. No, Lilah - " he stops, thinking. "Yes," he finally says. "Yes, she is beautiful, but so are you. It is unjust to compare the two of you. You are..." he hesitates, trying to think of what to compare her too. "You are like the sun."

Lilah gives him a sideways look through her long blond hair. "Difficult to look at?" She guesses. "How rude, Niklaus, how rude! Has Miss Esther taught you nothing of respect for women?"

Niklaus sputters for a moment, blinking rapidly before he sees the teasing smile slide across her face. He stares at her for a moment longer before a playful smile crosses his own full, red lips. "How very manipulative of you, Lilah. And I'll have you know, my mother taught me proper respect." His hand tightens around hers a bit more securely. "And no. I didn't mean it like that. You are like the sun. Bright and brilliant."

Lilah grins up at the slightly taller young man, giggling. "You're so sweet to me, Niklaus."

He flushes in embarrassment, lowering his eyes down to the forest floor, carefully avoiding anything that could catch his leg or otherwise trip him. Lilah watches his pretty eyes watch the ground. Eyes that remind her of Esther's. Niklaus is a spitting image of his mother, taking on almost all of her traits. He wasn't like his brothers or any of the other men in the village. He was fairer skinned, blond hair and blue eyes with just a touch of green in them. He didn't share the broad shoulders of the other men or the bulkier build. He was lean with sinewy muscles. He was built more for speed, elegant and grace, as opposed to brute strength exhibited by the other men in the village.

Lilah knew why the girls of the village were obsessed with him. He was the prettiest boy in the whole village. And he loved her.

***

Caroline drops her head onto Rebekah's shoulder, smothering her laugh with the other girl's arm. Rebekah's body shakes with laughter as she wraps her long, thin fingers around her coffee cup. Caroline wraps her hands around Rebekah's inner arm as tears well up in her eyes.

"Stop, please, have mercy, Rebekah," she cries, pulling away to wipe away a single tear that slips down her cheek.

"What?" Rebekah asks, giggling. "I told him that it was a terrible idea and he went along with it anyway!"

"Klaus, please tell me you didn't," Caroline asks, turning her eyes across the table to the other blond, smirking lightly around his third glass of bourbon. His eyebrows raise up his forehead as he watches her giggle.

"Well, what can I say?" Klaus says, shrugging his shoulders and leaning back in his seat to give a dry look to his brother who was smiling faintly amused back at him with a fond look in his eyes. As if this joyous mood is refreshing and a bit nostalgic. His eyes flicker around the table as if relieved to see both of his younger siblings having a bit of fun. Some levity to make up for whatever stress is building up around them. Like this moment offers them a bit of reprieve that they haven't had in a long time.

"Apologize for the fashion disaster and swear on Cosmo that you'll never do that again," Caroline says, shaking her head.

"I believe Rebekah neglected to mention this was a long time ago. And I learn from mistakes or... what did you call it, love?" Klaus asks, semi-amused. "Fashion faux pas?" Caroline giggles, nodding her head. "Yes, well, I'd like to think I'm much better now."

Caroline can't help herself, looking at his long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, three buttons by the collar with two undone, dark wash jeans and dark boots. 

She reaches out to his hand laying on the table, running her fingers over the couple of different bracelets jumbled upon his wrist. One was made of well-loved, colorful twine neatly woven and one was soft leather with a metallic setting and sapphire bigger than a half dollar in the center. It was the most beautiful blue Caroline has ever seen and has to wonder how she didn't notice it the day before.

"Yes, I see that you are," Caroline says, eyes locked onto the sapphire. "Is this real? I mean, it's just beautiful." She stares at the stark contrast of the dark blue against the white metal, black leather, and pale skin. And this one seems more cared for, pressed against his pulse point on his inner wrist.

"It is real, yes," Klaus says quietly. "And yes, it's beauty is unmatched." A pause, then, "Well, except for its pair."

"Pair?" Caroline echoes, looking back up into Klaus's eyes.

"There is another," Elijah says, lacing his fingers together neatly on the table. "Slightly larger but cut of the same stone. It belonged to someone very dear to us a long time ago."

"Ahh," Caroline says, admiring the sapphire a moment longer before finally letting Klaus's wrist go. "Well, it's gorgeous. This blue is my absolute favorite color in the entire world. I just love it," she says dreamily before leaning back in her seat. She looks down at her half-eaten burger and cold, soggy fries with disinterest. "Well, I think I'm done eating." She digs her phone out of her pocket to check the time, letting out a low groan. "I know that I offered to be the welcoming committee, and show you guys around town but is it wrong of me to regret it?"

She quickly texts Bonnie while she has it on her mind, "Don't forget to come to the gym at 2:30 so that we can start setting up!"

Rebekah studies the side of Caroline's face as she finishes her text message. "You do look tired, Caroline. Perhaps you should take a break."

Caroline gives her a sideways look, waving her hand around as she stuffs her phone back into her pocket. "That's what this is, unfortunately." She lets out a long, drawn-out sigh before turning her eyes to the approaching Vicki. "Perfect timing, can you bring the check?"

Vicki nods, stopping at the head of the table. "How are we splitting this up?"

Caroline opens her mouth, but before she can even say anything, Elijah cuts her off. "One check," he says, "and bring it to me."

Vicki nods again, turning to head toward the POS system near the bar to do just that. Caroline looks over at the oldest Mikaelson sibling. "You don't have to pay for my meal. I didn't even finish it. I should at least have to pay for my waste."

"Trust me, Caroline," Elijah says easily, "we want for little, my siblings and I. Besides, Niklaus's bourbon shots alone will cost at least twice what your meal was, as well as my own added to it. Money isn't a problem."

"Think of it as a thank you for showing us around town even though you're so busy," Rebekah says easily as Klaus downs the rest of his drink and pushes the glass toward the middle of the table.

"I don't know," Caroline says, not used to being doted on, quite like this. "I mean, the manual labor was supposed to be repayment."

Klaus finally cuts in. "If it means so much to you, you can repay us in a different way."

Elijah and Rebekah both give the middle Mikaelson sibling a hard look, both about to disagree with him when Caroline, curiously asks, "How?"

Klaus looks at Rebekah first, then Elijah, before finally looking over at Caroline and leaning forward onto the table again. "I have a... let's call him a friend, here in town that I've been looking for. He is part of the reason that we moved back here, to begin with. Unfortunately, when we got here we found that we were unable to reach him."

Caroline's eyebrows pull together tightly. "Oh no. Did something happen to him?" All she could think of was the string of strange animal attacks during the last few weeks.

Klaus splays out his fingers a bit with a little shrug. "I don't know, see, that's where I was hoping you would be able to help us, love. I can forgive this tiny debt, if you feel you owe it, in return for a bit of information."

That didn't seem so bad. "I guess that's fair. I can't promise I'll know anything, though."

"If not, it's fine," Rebekah says, shrugging her shoulders. "It's a few dollars anyway."

Elijah pulls out his phone and clicks a few buttons before holding it out for Caroline to see. It's a new phone, definitely much newer than Caroline' thinks she's seen recent commercials about it having just come out. She takes it from him and inspects the picture. It's small and he's hard to make out aside from dark hair, tanned skin, and a prominent frown probably in his late twenties to early thirties. But from what little she could see of his features, he was unfortunately unremarkable enough for her to have recalled him right off the bat if she even had seen him.

She presses her lips together tightly, trying to think if his face was at all familiar to her, but nothing really stood out. She turns her blue eyes toward Elijah, shaking her head and handing him back his phone. "I'm sorry, but I don't think he's familiar."

"It's alright," Elijah says, sticking the phone back into his pants pocket. "It was a long shot, anyway."

"I'm sorry," Caroline says again, frowning. "I wish I could be of more help to you." She reaches up, running her fingers through the flat parts of her hair, trying not to mess up her braids.

"Don't worry about it." Elijah waves her apology away, his eyes flicker up to something over Caroline's head. He reaches back into his pocket and pulls out his wallet in time for Vicki to return with the check. He passes over his card without even bothering to look at how much he's paying. Needless to say, Caroline has never had enough money to not even slightly care how much a bill is. Even if she knows that she has enough money to cover something, she's always looked just to make sure there wasn't a problem.

Vicki seems mildly surprised as well, but Elijah doesn't even spare her a second look past the respectful, "Thank you." Vicki hesitates, then she nods and leaves again to run the card.

Caroline's phone starts to ring, surprising her. She looks at the screen, eyebrows pulling together to see that Bonnie is calling.

Her eyes light up at the sight of her friend's name. She couldn't answer it fast enough. "Hey, Bonnie! Did you get my text?"

"Hey Caroline," Bonnie greets, but there is a lilt to her voice that sets Caroline on edge immediately. She knows that voice all too well.

"Oh no, what happened?" Caroline's eyebrows pull together tightly. "Is everything okay?" She feels her smile start to fade as she realized that her friend was about to tell her something that she didn't want to hear. She's starting to suspect what Bonnie was going to say.

"Yeah," Bonnie says, then hesitates. "Caroline, Grams wants me to help her at the college." A pause, then, "I know. I'm lame, and I'm sorry. I really don't mean to blow you off."

Caroline starts rubbing at her forehead, turning away from the three siblings, afraid of what her expression looked like. No doubt she looks upset and she hates that her new friends were being exposed to it. "Are you sure you can't make it? It's okay if you're a little late..." She says in a small voice, hoping the low din in the room will be able to prevent her tablemates from hearing her.

Bonnie sighs. "I'm sorry, Caroline. Really. I know that I'm the worst friend. I promise that I will make it up to you."

"It's okay," Caroline says, forcing levity and a lilt to her voice to make it sound like what she's saying is true. "To be honest, knowing me, I would just undo everything that you do. I'd just do it all myself, so really, it's probably better that you don't come."

Bonnie sighs again. "Caroline, don't be like that."

Caroline runs her fingers through her bangs. "Like what? It's okay, Bonnie."

"Your mad, Caroline. I can tell by your voice."

"I'm not," Caroline says, forcing herself to stop pulling at her bangs to tuck them behind her ears. "It's my fault. I signed you up. I'm not mad. As I said, it's probably better this way. I don't know what I was thinking before."

"Caroline," Bonnie says, "please don't be mad. I know that you are. I'm the worst, but it's grams, and you know how she is. Please. I will make it up to you. I promise."

"It's fine, Bonnie," Caroline says softly. "I'm not mad. But I've got to go. I have some stuff to get done. I'll see you later."

"Caroline," Bonnie tries again.

"I love you. See you, later."

Bonnie is quiet for a second. "I love you too. I will make it up to you, Care. I promise."

Caroline hangs up, staring down at her phone for a moment, wondering if somehow she could sink into the floor forever, or if this was just the beginning of a really horrible day. She hated that she was showing her new friends such a horrible side of her. These last few days have really been the worst. She hates that it has to be happening now. It couldn't have happened when things weren't crazy hectic.

Caroline rubs at her forehead, sighing slowly before forcing a smile and turning her eyes toward the three Mikaelson siblings. "Well, we'd better get going. I have a long day ahead of me."

"Is everything okay?" Rebekah asks.

"Yeah," Caroline lies right through her teeth, then realizes there was absolutely no point seeing as they could probably hear the conversation or at least guess on what was said. For the most part. "No, I mean." She sighs, rubbing at her forehead again before admitting, ashamed, "Bonnie bailed on me. I know all of this was super last minute and it really is my fault, but I'm still bummed, you know?"

"It's not your fault," Rebekah says, putting a hand on Caroline's arm. "Some things just happen. Whatever you and your friend were going to do, I'll just do it with you."

Caroline gives her a look. "You are already helping me so much today, Rebekah. I can't make you do more."

Rebekah looks smug. "You can't make me do anything, darling. Especially if I don't want to." She runs her fingers through her long, pin-straight blond hair. "Besides, I would love to help. If I'm going to be part of this town, I've got to better acquaint myself with the places, and the people. This will be good for me." She smiles charmingly.

Caroline's eyebrows pull together. She's not one to just continuously impose on people. Especially not on people that she just met, that has been more than kind to her. "I don't know."

"I want to," Rebekah says. She rubs Caroline's arm, reassuringly. "Please. Let me help."

Caroline stares into her eyes, wondering if she would be able to see any sort of hesitance or regret there. But all she sees is genuine kindness and empathy. Caroline watches closely, trying to decide if she's weak enough to keep betting on Rebekah's kindness or not when Rebekah smiles a bit more, saying softly, "I really want to help you. Please say yes."

Caroline presses her lips together tightly for a moment, weighing the options. Finally, reluctantly, she says, "I'm not going to hold you captive. If at any point it gets super boring and you want to leave, you're welcome to."

Rebekah laughs, rolling her eyes. "I doubt that, but it's good to know I've got a way out if I need to take it."

Vicki returns, handing back a black book with Elijah's card back to him. "Did you guys need anything else?"

"I'm good," Caroline says, moving to stand.

"Nothing for me," Rebekah says, following after Caroline. The younger blond stretches, her bones creaking and cracking as she pushes her arms up above her head as far as she can make it.

"I'm fine, thank you," Elijah says as he signs off, taking his card and placing it back into his wallet and then stuffing it into his pocket. He follows Klaus out of the booth.

"No," Klaus says, his voice flat. "We are finished." He turns to Caroline, ignoring Vicki. "Where shall we start first, love?"

Caroline smiles back at him, relieved to get moving. "Alright, let's head out."

***

"And last but not least, Mystic Falls High School," Caroline says, walking up to the school with a box in her arms. The three siblings trail behind her, holding a few boxes too. Rebekah holding one, and each brother holding two. Neither of them seem bothered.

"Cute," Rebekah says, placatingly.

Caroline juggles holding the box in one hand and open the door to the school with the other. The air conditioning is a blessing. It wasn't crazy hot outside, but they had been wandering around for a few hours and she was really feeling it. Naturally, the beautiful and perfect Mikaelson siblings seem to be completely unaffected by it, but Caroline is dying. 

That, and she has the endurance of a battery running low on juice.

"Okay, come on, stay open..." Caroline grumbles as wrestles with the door and the box, nearly tipping the box off the palm of her hand in her struggle. "Oh, shoot! Stay still, you!"

"Need some help, love?" Klaus asks from a few steps behind her.

"I'm okay!" The next moment is a jerky, gravity-defying twist that manages to somehow stop the heavy box from falling from her hand. She wrestles with it for an embarrassing amount of time, contorting her body, gasping and pg-13 cursing up a storm. She can hear Rebekah laughing at her struggle as she finally manages to hold the door open with her back while holding the door open wide enough for the siblings to enter into. "Darn door. Okay, it's all good! After you guys."

Rebekah goes through without a problem but Elijah holds back, stopping Klaus from going through with his body alone. "I can hold it, Caroline. You go on ahead."

Caroline gives the oldest Mikaelson brother a dry look, moving aside a bit so that he can stick his leg out and hold the door open. "Where were you ten minutes ago, Elijah?" Caroline calls as she slides inside and heads toward the gym with Rebekah following and the two brothers not far behind. She can hear his soft chuckle from behind her as she goes.

While they walk, Caroline blabbers on and on about this or that. "Stacy Bidaco won the talent contest this year but lost the trophy after that picture was taken" and "This is where we would go to practice light cheer routines when the track team used the gym when it rained out" and "This is my old locker. It's probably going to change this year, though so that'll be cool..." And so on and so forth.

She leads them to the gym to drop everything off. She then takes Rebekah to the office to introduce her to the front office lady, who was one of the only people there, before heading back to the gym to get started. It's almost five in the evening and it's about time that they get something done. Luckily she's done running around town get the donations and the vouchers for services from the local businesses. So now she just has to set up the skeleton for the drive at the school and then all the volunteers will be there to finish it up the day before the event.

She'll have to monitor, of course, but at least all the really hard stuff is done with and all she'll have to do is tell others what to do, and delegate. So, at least she'll have that going for her.

But even then, compulsive, obsessive, neurotic Caroline might have to do more than just that.

She'd rather not think about it for now. One thing at a time.

"Okay guys," Caroline says, walking into the gym. Both brothers were standing by the discarded boxes, staring at one another. They looked like they were having a heated discussion, both of their arms crossed as they stare at each other. The discussion ended as soon as she walked back into the room. "Ready to do manual labor way below your station?"

That earns a half-smile from Elijah and a little laugh and head shake from Klaus as the two brothers, who were huddled together turn to face her. Whatever they were talking about left their expressions.

"Of course, darling," Klaus says easily, casting Elijah a half glance and walking over to her.

They start setting up tables as Caroline pulls out the plan from her purse, unfolding the crinkled piece of paper full of her doodles, and the list of what table is supposed to be for which donation perk.

"Can I ask what all of this is for, Caroline?" Elijah asks conversationally as Caroline grabs out a spiral notebook to write out signs for the tables so that in the morning, everyone will know where to start setting up. Hopefully, it's not going to be that hard for people to figure out until she gets there.

"The donation drive. It doubles as like a raffle for items and services to benefit the Historical Society in their effort to preserve Mystic Falls history," Caroline says. "So, repairs statues and cleans parks and so on and so forth. Stuff like that." She tucks a lock of blond hair behind her ear as she writes down more names of businesses. "It's the norm here, in Mystic Falls, to sell your soul to community service, so I hope you guys are having fun." She winks at Klaus who smiles back at her, dimples popping out on his cheeks.

That almost killed her. What a beautiful boy.

"It's nice to see an engaged community," Elijah says. "It reminds me of New Orleans."

Caroline looks over at the dark-haired Mikaelson, "You lived in New Orleans?" Her blue eyes widened.

"Yes, a long time," Elijah says, a fond look of remembrance crosses his face before he turns away to set up another long white table.

"Have you ever been, Caroline?" Klaus asks, walking over to her to look down at the layout of the gym on the paper next to Caroline. He looks at her.

Caroline shook her head, turning to look at him. "No. I want to, though. I hear it's pretty lively and amazing there. I always wanted to see their Day of the Dead parade! The mystic allure, the camaraderie, the festivities, the culture. I just love the idea of it." She sighs, dreamily, eyelashes fluttering. "I bet it's a hundred times better than any festivals here."

"It is quite spectacular, to say the least," Klaus says.

"Truly," Elijah agrees, finishing propping up the last table before walking over to the two blonds. "It's definitely something you should invest in seeing someday. New Orleans is..." he shares a look with Klaus, "special for us." A moment of silence, then, he admits softly, "I wouldn't mind seeing it again."

"Has it been a while since you were last there?" Caroline asks, twisting around to look at the elder Mikaelson sibling.

"Too long," Rebekah cuts in, drawing all of their eyes over to the entrance to the gym. She walks in slowly, rubbing at the back of her neck. "Sorry about that... problem with my transcript, but it's alright now." She shares a look with her brothers before continuing, "It's been so long since we were in New Orleans. I've missed it. I think the time is fast approaching that we go back, don't you think, Nik?"

"In due time, Rebekah," Klaus says, stepping next to Caroline. "One thing at a time." He gives her a look, which she wilts a bit beneath, nodding slowly.

Caroline looks between the siblings, curiously, but decided that if it was important, she'll figure it out or be clued in eventually. Now with all four of them working, they move everything into place around the room. Everything is labeled and organized exactly to Caroline's specifications. Knowing herself as well as she does, she went behind them and straightened up things based on her neurotic view on how it should be.

Needless to say, they picked up on this trait quickly and made sure to get triple confirmation before moving on to the next thing. At some point, Rebekah and Elijah leave to grab some food while Caroline and Klaus sit on the risers, relaxing. Klaus was typing away on his expensive new phone, like Elijah's, while Caroline was sitting next to him, admiring their hard work. She feels her eyes start to droop as the long last few days really start catching up with her. She leans back against the raisers behind her and closes her eyes.

She feels like she only shut her eyes for a second, but when she opened them again, her head was on Klaus's shoulder and Elijah and Rebekah were already back. Somehow they managed to pull up some chairs and set out the food.

Elijah spots her eyes opening first. He tilts his head to the side a bit. "Hello, Caroline. How are you feeling?"

Caroline rubs at her face, sitting up slowly. She rolls her shoulders and neck around to work out the stiffness. "I'm okay. I must have been more tired than I thought," she admits, then looks over at Klaus, flushing a bit in embarrassment. "I'm sorry for laying on your shoulder." She wipes at her face, discreetly trying to make sure she wasn't drooling. All she knows is that her face was on fire. "That is so embarrassing."

"Not need to be bashful, love, you're tired," Klaus says, amused, probably becoming stronger by feeding on Caroline's embarrassment.

"We should eat and call it a day," Elijah says diplomatically. "It's late and by the sounds of it you have another busy day tomorrow too."

"Yeah, but at least I can sleep in a bit tomorrow," Caroline says, standing up and stretching before stepping off the riser and heading over to her purse, grabbing it and Rebekah's where she dropped it and brings them both over. She passes Rebekah's to her, who nods her thanks around a mouthful of rice before taking her place next to Klaus again, digging around until she finds her phone.

Caroline grabs her carton of sesame chicken, taking a bite while she skims her messages. Mostly from the volunteers for the next day. Some asking if they needed to bring stuff, some saying they were going to be late, some having someone else cover for them. So on and so forth. All within the group chat. Caroline takes a few bites, distracted.

She types out some reminders for the group before moving on. She's got a few messages from Bonnie, making plans for a sleepover a week after school starts, promising The Notebook and mani-pedis. She smiles, sending back an affirmation before moving on to the next when her phone goes off, displaying the name, "Birth-giver" across the screen.

Caroline hesitates for a moment before picking it up. "Hello?"

"Caroline, are you home?"

The face she's wearing must be one of exasperation. She rubs her forehead and sighs. "Judging by the question I'm sure it's safe to assume that you aren't?"

"You're not home?" Liz asks, sighing. "Do you have any idea how late it is?"

Caroline pulls her phone away from her ear to look at the clock in the clock in the corner, eyebrows pulled together before bringing it back to her ear. "I hope that's a rhetorical question. It's half-past seven. It's still light out and besides, I'm at the school gym. It's not like I'm out in the sticks."

"Caroline the advisory is still in effect. Go home before it gets dark out. I mean it. Or I'll drive up there and drive you home myself."

"I'm having some dinner with friends and then I'm heading home. Don't worry. I'll text you once I get home, okay? Don't worry." Caroline stuffs some more sesame chicken into her mouth. She chews thoughtfully, relishing every bite. She didn't get to eat as much as she had hoped for this morning, and running around the whole day has left her feeling ravenous.

Liz sighs. "One hour, Caroline. You better be at home."

Caroline rolls her eyes. "Fine." She hangs up, feeling that touch of regret and sadness that she always feels when she acts like that. Liz cares, Caroline knows that she does, but there will always be this little part of her that will resent her mother for not being around. There was nothing Liz could do to save her marriage Bill because he didn't love women, so Caroline never blamed her mother for that. Doesn't mean she isn't prone to throwing it in her mother's face from time to time - which she knows is unfair.

But that touch of blame always remained. She always blamed her mother for never being around. For always being hypocritical of her. For never trying to understand her, even if only a little bit.

Caroline lets out a long sigh, shaking her head. She looks around at the three siblings, picking away at their food, saying, "Thanks for the food. I'm going to finish up and head home. Do you guys know how to get to your house from here or do you need me to lead you back to The Grill?"

"We will be able to make it back from here," Elijah assures her. "Finish eating, we'll make sure you get to your car safely."

"You don't have to feed into my mom's worry," Caroline says, rolling her eyes. "I'm gonna be okay."

"There is plenty to be worried about, Caroline," Rebekah says. "You should trust your mother in that regard. After we're done, you'll let me know too, once you get home, won't you?"

Caroline rolls her eyes, eating some more chicken. "You guys all worry too much."

"Promise me, Caroline," Rebekah says, her eyebrows pulling together tightly. "I just want to make sure that you're safe."

"Okay, I will," Caroline agrees. "Now, let's get back to eating."


	4. The Road

"Oh look, Niklaus!" Lilah says, pulling the pretty boy toward the field of flowers, her eyes blown wide. She walks through the flowers and weeds, holding her hands out, tilting her head up toward the sun that she was compared to, not too long before. She releases Niklaus's hand and spins around, closing her eyes and spinning around slowly, enjoying the heat. "Oh, isn't it all so beautiful? The sun? The flowers?"

"Breath-taking," Niklaus says softly.

Lilah stops, turning a soft smile toward the blond man, tucking a long strand of wavy blond hair behind her ear. Crinkles appear around her eyes as her gaze meets the third son of Mikael and Esther's. "I know, the scenery is to die for."

The softest, most vulnerable expression crosses his face brightening up Lilah's expression even more. "Yes," Niklaus says softly, admiring her with honest, pretty eyes, "I admit, the scenery is beautiful, yes. But I'm looking at something more breathtaking still. The most beautiful girl in the world."

Lilah grins at him. "You are so sweet to me, Niklaus." She tosses some of her long blond hair over her shoulder. "I almost believed that you meant it."

Niklaus's eyebrows pull together a bit, a small frown pulling at pretty, full lips. "You should believe it, Lilah, because it is the truth." He blinks a few times. "Is this about Tatiana? Lilah, you don't need to feel like you're second to Tatiana. You are so wonderful and beautiful and... and perfect." He looks her up and down slowly. "Don't try to compare yourself to her."

Lilah turns away slowly, walking through the field, admiring the flowers as she reaches out and touches their peddles. "I don't hate myself enough to compare to my beloved cousin, Niklaus. I am just very aware of where I stand." She stops, turning to see that Niklaus has followed her into the field. She looks at him for a long moment before saying, softly, "But when you look at me like that, with those big, beautiful eyes, I can't help but think that what you say is true. That if given the chance, someone would choose me over Tatiana."

"Lilah," Niklaus says softly, walking closer to her until he can reach out and take her hands in his. "If I knew that your father wouldn't throw a fit, I would ask for your hand in a heartbeat."

Lilah smiles lightly, feeling a stabbing pain in her eyes as tears well up a bit in relief. Those words lifting a heavy weight from her shoulders. "Thank you, Niklaus. My father mayhaps is too infatuated with earning your father's approval, thus feeding into his negative thoughts. Alone, though, I know my father thinks you are a good man. Mikael is... a hard man to be on the opposing side from."

Niklaus's expression turns somber as his lips press together tightly. "Yes, I... know that feeling well."

Lilah tilts her head to the side a bit, stepping closer to the man, placing her hands in his and looking up into his eyes. "Why is that? Why does your father treat you so bad?"

Niklaus looks like he would rather talk about anything other than this, looking around at everything else but Lilah before him. There is a look of wonder, shame, and confusion written across his face. He doesn't know the answer to that. He reaches up slowly, touching the starling necklace his mother made for him when he was really young, finding comfort in his mother's gift.

***

Caroline sends a quick text to bother her mother and Rebekah, letting both of them know that she's home safe. She quickly changes into pajamas, washes off her makeup and lays down on the couch, turning on the television. She finds something on the movie channel, pulling out her spiral notebook to finish up the last bits of preparation for tomorrow before tossing it onto the coffee table and laying down to zone out.

She woke up, briefly to her mother draping a blanket around her and turning off the television before walking into the kitchen. She turns the light on, messes around for a moment before turning the light off and heading down the hall to her room. She shuts the door and the house falls quiet aside from gentle shuffling behind Liz's door.

Caroline pushes herself up, dropping the blanket back onto the couch and tiptoes into her room before collapsing into bed. Her eyes slam shut before her head even hits the pillow.

The sound of her phone vibrating wakes her from a dead sleep. She dropped it onto her nightstand the night before. Thankfully everyone wanted to coordinate a little breakfast feast to prepare for the day and was blowing up her phone. Unfortunately, it was draining the life from her phone. She's on two percent when she checks it and all the messages.

Thankfully it woke her up with enough time to text Rebekah and let her know about the feast in case she wanted to bring something to the setup today, and then the group chats to remind them of the time to be there and that she was offering to bring donuts. With that, she plugs her phone and gets ready for the day, relieved to see that it was almost ten o'clock. At least she got a little bit more sleep than she thought.

She's groggy and still tired, but feeling so much better than she has felt in days, so she's got that going for her.

She pulls out her braids, ruffling her wavy hair and washing her face again before applying some makeup, and changing into some comfortable clothes and a worn pair of sneakers. A knock at her door pulls Caroline's eyes toward the entryway into her room to see Liz standing there.

"No work today?" Caroline asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Later," Liz says dismissively. "Going out again?"

"We are setting up for the donation drive. It's tomorrow, remember?" Caroline crosses her arms over her chest, frowning.

Liz nods. "Of course I remember. I'm gonna be there."

"Working?" Caroline asks, her eyebrows furrowing.

"I'm always working, Caroline," Liz says, leaning against the doorframe. "But you've put in a lot of hard work. I'm excited to see it." She smiles faintly and Caroline feels bad for her attitude.

"Well, thank you," Caroline says softly, tucking a long wavy strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm going to finish the setup today, so I'm going to get going. I've got to pick up donuts for the volunteers." She starts packing up all of her stuff, putting it into her purse before grabbing onto her phone. She checked to see that it was only about thirty-seven percent charged, which was just going to have to do.

"Stay safe out there, Caroline, and don't be late coming home today, okay?" Liz says, following after her as Caroline gathers the rest of her stuff from the living room before grabbing her keys and heading for the door.

"Sure thing, Sheriff."

"I mean it, Caroline!" Liz calls.

"I hear you, bye!" Caroline waves her hand over her head before walking out the door toward her car. Her phone vibrates in her pocket. She throws her purse into her passenger seat before checking it to see that it was Rebekah texting her back, saying that she'd be there. And bring coffee. She was going to bring a variety but got Caroline's specific order.

Caroline texts Rebekah her order and a bold proclamation of, "I love you for this."

Rebekah's quick response was, "You'd better."

Caroline heads to the donut shop and picks up a wide variety of donuts for the hungry volunteers before heading to the school. Bonnie texted her while she was waiting at a red light, "I'm going to be a bit late. Elena can't make it today, so I'm going to swing by her house to pick up some things for the drive. I'll be there like twenty minutes late."

"Okay!" Caroline texts back, not even slightly upset that her best friend was going to be late. She's just so happy that'll she'll get to see her today.

Once Caroline pulls up to the school, she's relieved to see that people are already showing up. After only having a bit of help these last few days, seeing so many people is such a relief. She was really looking forward to all this help, despite the neurotic tendencies that she is well known for. She is so excited to get this over with and move on to the next project.

This year was going to be her year. She was going to make the absolute best of it. This is their junior year. One more year of schooling after this and then the world was theirs for the taking.

Caroline helps them set up the table with the feast, then moves to work on the sign-in sheet for the volunteers. Rebekah shows up a few minutes later and drops off the coffee, which is a success and people swarm for it. They don't even bother to ask who she was or why she brought it for them. Caroline rolls her eyes as she takes the cup from her friend and offers her a hug.

"Thank you, Rebekah. I really appreciate you coming today too. You have been such a huge help."

Rebekah waves her hand around dismissively. "Don't even worry about it. If we are going to be part of this town, we might as well do what we can to get better acquainted with the people here." She shrugs her shoulders then offers a pearly white-toothed grin. "Besides, I'm having fun."

"You mean that?" Caroline asks, sipping her chocolate frappuccino. "I can't imagine all of this is too much fun."

"You're doing it," Rebekah says smoothly, slow blinking big blue eyes. "And you look like you're having fun."

Caroline feels a smile working its way across her face. "Okay, I guess you have a point. But since you are here, grab some food and let's get started."

***

"Hey, Care!"

Caroline spins around, nearly tossing the clipboard in her hand to the floor but somehow managing to toss it at Tyler before throwing herself into Bonnie's arms to hug her tightly. 

She hugs her friend, swaying back and forth a few times. "Ah, Bonnie. I have missed you so much! We can't go this long without seeing each other! Never, ever again."

Bonnie hugs her back just as tight. "I've missed you too. A month is definitely way too long." She offers her crooked grin up at the taller blond. "Are we still on for a sleepover next weekend?"

Caroline nods eagerly, pulling back. "Yes, definitely." Then a thought occurs to her. "Oh, Elena can come too! Oh, and Rebekah!"

Bonnie twists her head a bit. "Who's Rebekah?"

"Oh, Bonnie, she's my new friend. I met her a few days ago and she has been so great helping me out with all of this," she says, gesturing around the gym. "You are going to love her. I just know it."

Bonnie's dark eyes are blown wide with her eyebrows raised toward her hairline. She blinks a few times before smiling crookedly. "Okay. I'm sure if she's won you over so quickly, that we're going to get along great." There is a moment of silence before her expression softens sweetly. "I'm sorry that I wasn't able to help you these last few weeks. I'm glad that you were able to find someone to help you, though."

Caroline nods. "Thanks. She's pretty great. I'll introduce you guys next chance we get." Caroline casts a glance over the shorter girl's shoulder to see the girl in question helping Matt out, laughing at something he was saying. He was grinning back at her, being charmed by her beauty, no doubt. Caroline's not sure how she feels about that, seeing as he was Elena's boyfriend until the end of school last year and it feels weird to see him with someone else, but maybe this will be good for him.

And Rebekah has been really sweet to Caroline. She hopes for the best for both of them.

Bonnie nods back at her. "Sounds good." She draws dark brown eyes across the gym. "Alright, so, tell me what to do first, boss."

***

"Bonnie this is Rebekah Mikaelson, an angel sent by the gods to stop me from losing my mind these last few days," Caroline says, doing a grand sweeping motion to the blond.

Bonnie offers a little wave of the hand, amused by her friend's words. "Hello."

"Hello there," Rebekah says, smiling softly.

"And Rebekah, this is Bonnie Bennett, best friend in the whole wide world, who betrayed me these last few days but still holds a secure place in my heart." Caroline offers her best friend a fluttering lashes look. Bonnie laughs again, shaking her head while Rebekah blinks a few times, her face falling into a peculiar expression as if thinking of something that was conflicted inside of her.

"What?" Caroline asks, noticing that look. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Rebekah says, forcing a smile. "It was lovely to meet you, Bonnie. A real pleasure."

Caroline watches her a moment longer, making sure that she was okay before looking around the gym, pleased at everything being set up and decorated nicely. It's late into the afternoon, but everything is done in time for the drive and looks great. Caroline takes a moment to really appreciate it all before turning back to her friends.

"So, everything looks good." Caroline turns to look at her two friends. "I think the day is done. Thank you both for all of your hard work. I love you both and I appreciate it." She hugs both girls tightly.

"What are you up to now, Caroline?" Bonnie asks, checking her phone to see the time. "It's only four. Do you want to go out and eat?"

"I would love to," Caroline says, sighing dramatically, "but I still need to run a few errands before school starts, getting some last-minute things. How about breakfast, tomorrow? Before the donation drive? We can go together."

Bonnie nods. "Sure." She turns to Rebekah. "Would you like to come too?"

Rebekah seems surprised, giving Bonnie a guarded look, studying her closely before nodding. "Sure. I would love to."

"Good," Caroline cheers, excited that one of her oldest friends and her new friend is getting along well. "So, I'll text both of you tonight to set up a time tomorrow for us to meet up."  
"Alright," Bonnie says, rubbing Caroline's arm. "I'll see you later, Care. I'm going to go make sure I've got everything ready for school too then. And I think my dad is trying to get ahold of me." Then she turns her eyes to Rebekah. "It was nice to meet you, Rebekah. I'll see you both tomorrow." She waves her hand and heads toward the exit.

"Bye Bonnie!" Caroline calls, waving her hand. She turns to the blond next to her. "Do you have any big plans for today?"

"I am heading back home to make sure that everything is all set up properly. Can never trust boys to put things where they need to be," Rebekah says, rolling her eyes playfully. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"Of course!" Caroline agrees, she turns to start heading out before stopping. "And Rebekah?" She turns and looks over at her new friend.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for being here today. You really have been a great help."

Rebekah smiles sweetly, a small blush coloring her cheeks. "I'm happy to be here."

Caroline hugs her friend one more time. "I'm glad. I will see you tomorrow."

"Bye."

***

Caroline finishes up her shopping on the other side of town. Once she's finished packing up everything up into her car she heads home. She turns on the radio for the long drive home. It's dark out and she's surprised her mom hasn't blown up her phone yet. But she's probably working and has forgotten to check-in, which is fine. If her mom has to warn her to be home three nights in a row, she's going to be dead.

For once, Liz being busy is a good thing for Caroline.

Caroline sings at the top of her lungs to the new Miley Cyrus song. She looks up into the rearview mirror for a moment, thinking she saw a flash of light - like another car - coming up behind her in the dark, winding road, but there is nothing. She must have been seeing things. She's been really tired these last few days. As soon as her eyes land on the road again she sees a man step out right in front of her.

She can't even see the head of his shadow against the moon behind him, she's that close to him.

A scream escapes Caroline as her heart leaps up into her throat and her foot slams on the breaks. Her car screeches as she slams into him and his body rolls over her windshield. Her car skids to a stop and Caroline is paralyzed, staring at the road in front of her in complete shock. Her heart is pounding in her chest as her blood roars in her ears.

Her brain seizes for a moment, trying to process what just happened. That's when the shaking in her hands starts as she finally realizes what she had done. Her eyes flicker up to the rearview mirror to see his body laying distorted on the road. Caroline puts her car into 'park' and digs around in her purse quickly, pulling out her phone before swinging the door open, choking on her seatbelt before remembering to unbuckle it, and running back toward the body lying prone in the street from the last place she saw it.

His body is contorted somewhat strangely, and it looks like one of his legs is broken.

Caroline kneels down beside him, reaching out to touch his wrist, feeling a heavy pulse as the tang of blood fills the air. Caroline pulls out her phone and could scream seeing that it was somehow on one percent. She quickly dials 911. As soon as the operator picks up before they can even finish their standard, "9-1-1 what's your emergency?" Caroline is screaming her name, location and what happened, finishing it with a quick, "My phone is about to die!"

She pulls her phone away after a second of no response to see that her screen is black. She has absolutely no idea how much of that the Operator heard.

"The hybrid..."

Caroline looks down at the man's face, seeing it pale and bloodied. His dark eyes struggle to focus on her. Despite all the blood and the terrible lighting, his average features that can be seen somehow strikes a familiar cord to her, but she's not sure where she'd seen them before.

"Don't talk," Caroline whispers frantically, tears sliding down her face, forcing her distracting thoughts away to try and focus on what's important at the moment. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. Don't worry. You're going to be fine. The Ambulance is on its way."

His bloodshot eyes find her face in the moonlight. He takes a moment to focus on her face, blinking rapidly. "The hybrid has to know..." he swallows a few tines, as if unable to wet his mouth despite dribbles of blood sliding from the corner of his lips, "The witches... prevent the lifting of the curse... " He looks up at the sky. "Moonstone with the Lock... Lock..." His eyes float back and forth as if following something only he could see. "Hybrid's power... too great... Original blood... key for change..."

"Hold on," Caroline whispers, desperately. "Just hold on, okay?" She can feel tears sliding down her face as her throat starts to constrict closed. "Don't die, okay? Open your eyes. Sir? Sir!" She gives his shoulder a little shake but somehow it wakes him up. She can feel blood seeping between her fingers from who knows where on his body.

Through bleary eyes, he mumbles, "Huh? Who?" His hand is twitching at his side, but it's not moving around which leads Caroline to think that either he doesn't have the energy or something along his arm is broken. The thought alone makes Caroline sick to her stomach like she's going to throw up. The smell of iron is even stronger now than it was a moment ago.

"Caroline," Caroline says softly, mentally praying to anyone who is listening that he doesn't die. That she doesn't become a murderer tonight. "Who are you? Can you tell me your name?" She wasn't sure if he had any ID but she wasn't going to go looking.

"Charlie," the man murmurs as headlights nearly blind Caroline. She brings up one of her hands to block out the light while screwing her eyes shut as her retinas burn. The name burns into the back of her mind like the high beams burn into her eyes. It's definitely a normal name, but for some reason, it clicks with her. She knows him from somewhere.

Caroline stands up slowly until she hears something whoosh up behind her. The hair on the back of her neck stands up on end but before she can even think about turning around, there is a burst of pain in the back of her head and then nothing.

***

Caroline doesn't dream. Instead, all she sees it the swirling nothingness of dreamless sleep. She feels something lightly touch the back of her neck so softly, she almost thought she imagined it until it pressed lightly into her pulse point, which pulls her from the blackness and into the pain in her neck, upper back, and head. She feels a groan rip from her as she starts to turn over from her chest and stomach, hardly able to breathe.

"Careful now," Elijah's soft voice calls out to her from a far off place. "That was a hard hit you took."

He helps her roll over onto her back as she forces her eyes open and blinks a few times. Now that she's pulling herself more and more into consciousness, her head is splitting. 

"Elijah?" Caroline croaks, reaching up to rub at her head.

"I'm here," Elijah says, crouching over her. He gently touches at her neck and shoulders, pressing lightly and along her spine, helping her slowly sit up. "I don't feel any spinal cord damage," he mumbles to himself. "That's good, at least."

Caroline rubs at her forehead as her full body pulses in pain. "What happened?"

"Rebekah told me you went missing," Elijah says, tilting her head up to look at her face for something. His lips press together unhappily. "She didn't hear from you and texted that boy from the other day. Matt, was it? He said that no one had seen you since the gym hours before. That your mother was worried sick and couldn't get ahold of you."

Caroline blinks a few times, trying to process the information before it hits her. "My mom? What time is it?"

"It's a little after midnight." His eyebrows furrow together. "What happened to you, Caroline? What are you doing out here? In the middle of the road?"

Caroline can hear his questions but all she can think about is how badly her mom is going to kill her. "My mom? Oh my god! I'm so late, I have to go home! Shoot! My mom is going to kill me!" She stands up far too quickly and all the blood rushes from her head, making her sway. Elijah stands up, grabbing hold of her arms to keep her in place.

"Caroline, calm down. You're bleeding from the head. What happened? Who did this to you?"

"She's going to kill me!" Caroline exclaims, then stops, watching a car pull up. It wasn't her mom's car yet somewhere in her garbled brain it made sense for her to blindly ask, "Mom?" Only for Klaus to emerge from the car. She blinks a few times, seeing the moonlight behind him light up his head like a benevolent crown of white light. Tears stung at her eyes as an unexplainable relief washes over her. "Klaus?"

"Caroline..." Klaus says, crossing the street to her, having left his car running. He kneels down in front of her, reaching out to cradle her face in his hands, tilting it up so that he could look at her face. "How do you feel, love?"

Caroline blinks, feeling tears slide down her cheeks, and somewhere on her left cheek the salt of her tears burns. Her eyebrows pull together a bit in the pain and Klaus, softly, wipes it away. He studies her face.

"Tell me. How do you feel, love?"

Caroline looks around as if the answers were floating around her head. A gentle rub of the pad of his thumb against her cheek, watching her face closely. "I... I'm in pain," she mumbles, half hypnotized by his eyes, somehow almost silver in the light. He nods slowly, encouraging her to keep going. "My neck, my face, my chest..." She blinks a few times, the events of before wash over her, slamming into her chest as her car slammed into that guy. She twists around painfully, her eyes finding the blackened out bloodstain on the pavement with peculiar sliding marks toward the forest. She looks back over at the blond in front of her. "Klaus..."

His head tilts slightly. "Caroline?"

"Klaus..." Caroline whispers, her voice hoarse as tears slide down her face. "I... I killed him."

Klaus looks over her shoulder at the bloodstain on the pavement, not even surprised, or really interested. "Who was it?"

"I... I don't know..." Caroline whispers, blinking rapidly. "I hit him with my car..."

Klaus raises an eyebrow, over her shoulder, Klaus can see Elijah studying the blood mark, running his fingers over it and turning dark eyes toward the forest beyond, listening closely to see if he can hear something beyond human hearing. Klaus brings his eyes back to the trembling, bloodied girl before him, "Seeing as you didn't swerve off the road and into him, it seems, he was probably where he didn't belong, not you."

She's not sure if he was being cryptic or cynical or both, but that didn't make her feel anything other than mad. If he was trying to make her feel better, he was failing epically. She glares at him. "That's not the point, Klaus! I killed him! I hit him with my car and killed him!" Saying the words suddenly made them click in her mind. "Oh my god... oh my god! I killed him! I killed that man! Klaus... I'm a monster! I'm a killer!"

"No, darling, no. You aren't a monster," Klaus says, pushing her bloody blond hair from her face. It pulls a bit at the blood glued to her forehead. She can only imagine what she must look like. He looks at her with a soft expression. "I've seen real monsters, love, and you aren't one of them."  
"But I... I killed..." Caroline mumbles.

Klaus purses his red lips a bit, shaking his head. "No, love, I don't think that you did. Untold damage, sure, but it looks like he pulled himself off the road." His eyebrows raise as he stares at the stain. "Or someone pulled him." Elijah nods, standing, and heading toward the forest, rolling his sleeves up his arms as he does so, readying himself to get dirty.

Caroline's eyebrows pull together tightly, not sure she understands what he was saying.

"Yes, Sheriff," Rebekah says, stepping out of Klaus's car. "This is Rebekah Mikaelson, I just moved in a few days ago, but I'm a friend of Caroline's. We went shopping for last-minute school supplies and then she came over last night. We were watching some movies and fell asleep on the couch. I just heard from Matt that you were looking for her. Do you want to talk to her?" Rebekah stoops down next to Caroline, nodding her head slowly before holding out the phone for Caroline to take.

Caroline stares at it like it's a foreign object before reaching out to take it, only to stop and look at her hands, blood both wet and dry stain her hands red. They feel crusty and gross. Rebekah, as if reading her mind, brings the phone to her ear and holds it in place for Caroline to hear. Klaus's hand on that side drops onto his knee, casting sideways glances between both girls.

"Mom?" Caroline croaks.

"Caroline," Liz gasps. "Christ, where are you?"

"I... I'm..." Caroline looks around the road, her eyes find Rebekah's, remembering her lie and realizing that it was to protect her. Scared, and worried, she whispers, "We were watching movies and fell asleep. I'm so sorry, mom." She starts to cry. "I didn't mean to, mom. I'm so sorry. I am so so sorry."

Liz sighs. "It's alright, Caroline. But why aren't you answering your phone? Why are you crying? Are you okay?"

"Dead..." Caroline sobs. "It's dead." Klaus's lips are pressed together, watching her quietly while Rebekah looks sad. Her eyebrows are pulled together tightly. Caroline closes her eyes, focusing on the lie. "My phone died, mom. I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I promise."

Liz is quiet for a moment. "Are you hurt, Caroline?"

"No," Caroline lies despite there being this radiating pain across her entire body. "I'm okay. I am. I'm just so sorry."

"Don't scare me like that again, do you hear me, Caroline?"

"Yes, mom."

Another moment of silence, before Liz asks, quietly, "Do you need me to come to pick you up?"

Caroline's eyes find Rebekah's and the girl is shaking her head. "No. I'll stay over at Rebekah's house tonight."

Liz sighs. "Alright. But you are coming home with me tomorrow, after the donation drive, alright?"

Klaus's thumb wipes away the last tear sliding down Caroline's face as she rasps, "Yes. I'll see you tomorrow, mom." Caroline sniffles a few times, looking at Klaus as Rebekah hangs up the phone. "What do I do?" She asks, her voice hoarse. Her pleading blue eyes stare into his, pleading with him to just tell her what to do. She's scared and hurt and confused. Her head hurts and her mind is a jumbled mess.

Klaus stares at her, looking at her through his dark lashes as his head tilts down toward the pavement. His eyebrows raised up toward his hairline as he watches her for a moment before a soft expression crosses his face and he stands up slowly, taking both of Caroline's hands, not minding the blood, and pulling her up to her feet slowly.

"Come home with us to our home and we will take care of the rest."

He reaches out, tucking a crusty strand of bloody hair behind her ear before wrapping his arm around her shoulders while holding onto her right hand and pulling her along toward his car. He holds onto her tightly, keeping her standing with barely any help on her part.

"Rebekah, if you will?" Klaus says over his shoulder. "Get Caroline's car to our home."

Rebekah sighs. "Fine, Nik."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Caroline remembered the third Mikaelson sibling. She turns to look over her shoulder for the final sibling."Elijah? Where is Elijah?"

"No need to worry about Elijah, love," Klaus says, dismissively. "He will be fine."

He helps her into the passenger side of his car before walking over and climbing into the front. Caroline looks around the car. It smells like Klaus's cologne and a touch of Rebekah's perfume. She looks out the windshield to see Elijah walking back up from the forest looking no worse for wear, which is a relief. Rebekah goes over to talk with him before she heads toward Caroline's car.

At this point, Caroline didn't care where she went, even if it was with the devil himself, she just wanted to get off this road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caroline's supernatural alignment:
> 
> Vampire?
> 
> Witch?
> 
> Werewolf?
> 
> Hybrid?
> 
> Or a combination. Let me know!


	5. Rewritten

Lilah watches as a slew of emotions crosses over Niklaus's face. He gently touches his necklace in thought before looking over at the long blond-haired girl. He hesitates for a moment, wondering how to say this. The war between wanting to keep an iron-clad grip on whatever pieces of his pride he can scrape together or just admit to whatever it was that he was thinking the answer might be is displayed across his expression.

He decides on the latter of the two and quietly admits, "I don't know why." He twirls his necklace a bit more, running his fingers across the silver starling, memorizing the shape and design with just his fingertips. "I suspect that it is simply because I am not as strong or as skilled as Elijah or Finn. My father... our family are Vikings, and the men of our family are strong."

Lilah tilts her head to the side, stepping closer to him. "You are strong, Niklaus. You are very strong. Who said that you weren't?"

Niklaus gives her a look. "My father." He sighs. "He seems to believe that I am far less worthy than worms in the earth or ants in their hill. I am just a disappointment to him and he never passes up a chance to make me aware of that fact." He shakes his head, shame, and humiliation washing over his face. He hates having to admit that his father doesn't like him as much as his brothers.

It is a powerful source of shame for him. Lilah's heart bleeds for him.

Lilah frowns, wishing that there was something that she could do that would make him feel better. She reaches up to caress his face lovingly. "Your father just doesn't see you, Niklaus, for what you are. You are strong and brave, and smart too. You have so many skills that your father refuses to offer the admiration that it deserves, like your art. I've seen you mixing berries. I've seen the little splotches of color. They are beautiful and you are gifted."

Niklaus looks down at the flowers, cheeks darkening. His eyes find the beautiful flowers in the field and admire them quietly as he thinks about her words. Lilah had to wonder if even nature's beautiful colors could be mimicked by the artful hands of the man before her. She studies his face, watching as the shame and pain melts into embarrassment and bashfulness.

Lilah reaches up and cups both of Niklaus's thin cheeks. His face wasn't like hers. His face was thin with high, protruding cheekbones while hers was soft and round and full. She runs her thumbs across those beautiful cheekbones while staring up into his eyes.

"Listen to me, Niklaus. You are powerful. You are strong. You are mighty. Others do not define your strength or your worth. Not you father. Not my father. Not anyone. Only those with your permission have the ability to help you do that. But only with your permission. Otherwise, you are the lord of your own destiny." She holds his head tightly to ensure his eyes stay on her. 

He stares back at her, blue eyes so wide, she can see the green in the center of his irises hold just a touch of yellow too. "Why is it that you seem to be able to see right through me?" He looks mesmerized.

Lilah smiles, tenderly, running her fingers across his cheeks. "Because my heart is yours, and yours is mine."

***

Caroline remembers about two minutes into the ride that she is absolutely covered in blood, the blood of the guy she splattered across the pavement and probably some of her own. She watches the road sail past as Klaus drives down the darkened path, perhaps faster than he should, yet he doesn't seem bothered. She blinks a few times, finally starting to come back into herself. Her mind is racing, trying to recall what happened leading up to when she was attacked.

Attacked?

"Klaus..?" Caroline rasps into the quiet darkness of the car.

"Yes, love?" He asks, just as quietly.

"Did someone attack me..?" She looks over at his profile as they pass by a streetlight and it illuminates the inside of the car for a moment. "Why..? Why would someone do that to me? Because I hit that man? Where is his body? What happened?"

Klaus doesn't respond right away. She watches in the passing light as his fingers of his left-hand tap against the steering wheel as if lost in thought. Caroline appreciates the amount of time he considers that question, but the silence physically hurts her. She pulls her eyes to the side of his head when he doesn't answer after what feels like an eternity.

"Klaus..?" Caroline whispers softly.

"I don't know, love. I don't know who you hit, let alone why anyone would want to attack you, but I promise you this," he looks over at her as a dark shadow crosses over his face, "you are safe with us. No one will harm you so long as I'm here. I will keep you safe."

Caroline stares at him, a tug at her heart. No one has ever said something like that to her before. It seems like something straight out of her favorite romance movies and she loves it. "Really? Why would you do something like that for me?"

Klaus pulls up to a stop sign and stopped. He keeps his foot on the break and turns to look at Caroline. The moonlight casts a shadow across his face that highlights his high cheekbones and the light bounces off his eyes making it almost seem like they are glowing, if only faintly. Surely Caroline is just imagining it, but she somehow finds a bit of comfort in it. Which is so weird now that she's thinking about it.

"In due time, darling," Klaus says, his long lashes casting even longer shadows across his cheeks. "For now, let's get you home safe, shall we?" His smile is chilled in the darkness. His eyes somehow find hers in the darkness. "We'll be there soon." He turns back to the road and keeps going.

After a few minutes of silence, Caroline finally says softly, "Thank you for helping me, Klaus. You and Elijah and Rebekah... thank you." She looks down at her bloody hands, somehow able to disassociate the blood on it for fake blood or for paint that dyed her fingers and palms.

"Anything for you, love," he says softly, watching the road without expression.

Caroline feels like she fell asleep, even though her eyes stayed open the entire way to the Mikaelson home she doesn't even remember where she was. Or how she got there. In Klaus's car, obviously, but she's not sure where in town she is, but she doesn't blink until she feels Klaus's hands wrapping around her wrists and pulling her out of the car. She's still stuck in this daze as he leads her into his home up the elegant staircase and into a bedroom.

Caroline barely notices the soft touches of a feminine personality in the room before he leads into a huge bathroom and drops her down at a chair in front of the vanity. He walks over and turns on the huge marble shower, measuring the water until it's warm before turning to look over at her.

"Shower, wash off the night. You're in Rebekah's room. She should be here soon. She'll bring you some clothes to change into," he says before walking out of the room and shutting the double doors that separate the bathroom and the bedroom. Caroline sits there, listening to the shower run for a few minutes before finally pulling enough back into herself to kick off her shoes, peel off her sweaty, blood-stained clothes before stopping and turning her gaze toward the huge wall of mirrors adjacent to the shower and jetted tub.

Tears swell up in her eyes as she stares at the haunted, bloody, bruised figure staring back at her. Her pale skin was stained with blood on her hands, neck, back, legs, and feet. There is bruising on her face and cement burns from sliding her face across the asphalt when she was knocked out. Her face looks ashed and bloodied and even though there was steam starting to build upon the mirrors, the cold floors were seeping into her skin, giving her goosebumps.

She doesn't recognize the stranger staring back at her. But she knows that it is supposed to be herself staring back and the fact that this bloodied, weak person was all she could see, her heart was broken. She has no idea how all of this happened but she felt sick to her stomach and upset. She was running a little behind while on her way home from her errands, and some guy stepped out into the middle of the road. She hit him and tried to call the police, but her phone died, and then someone came and knocked her out and took him away?  
Why? What happened? Who would do that? And why would they have needed to knock her out? She didn't mean to hit him, it was an accident. She would have done what she could to help him. She guesses it doesn't matter much now. It doesn't mean that she doesn't feel horrible. She has to try and find that guy. At the very least, she can apologize for what she did and hope that he's alright.

Finally, Caroline drags herself into the shower, stepping under the spray, turning her head down to watch as the water slowly becomes redder and redder as she washes the blood caked in her hair and on her skin. As more blood washes across the stone floor, her mind chooses that moment to remind her that not all of that blood was hers.

Then, as if possessed, she scrubs away at her skin and hair with her hands, trying to get all of the blood off of her. She scrubs at a particularly sensitive part of her scalp, no doubt where she was hit and sees hot, fresh blood drop into the water swirling down into the drain. She's more careful around that spot, hoping that it will clot over again before long.

Caroline lowers herself into the fetal position, her body aching. Partly from the hit to her head, partly from the way she was laying for so long and partly because of how bad she's been sleeping the last few days has finally caught up with her. She decides not to use shampoo on her head today. She'll shower again tomorrow and wash her head then. She doesn't want to get all those chemicals in the wound. She's not smart enough to know if it was safe or not, so best to just wait. She just has no idea what's safe and what isn't. Tomorrow, she decides, she'll do it tomorrow.

Honestly, curled under the spray with the water running down her back and arms with her face in her knees, Caroling felt herself drift off to sleep. She heard Rebekah come in to drop off some clothes and check on her, but Caroline was fine, laying under the spray, hoping against hope that the hot water would somehow be able to wash away the pain and the worry of the night. What could have happened? Where could that guy have gone? Who attacked her? Why did they attack her? What did they do with that guy afterward?

She just didn't know.

Caroline must have dozed off, because, at some point, Caroline heard the water turn off and feel a large, fluffy pink towel wrap around her. She lifts her head, regretting it immediately from the headache and from the weird way she was resting her neck for who knows how long to see Rebekah helping wrap the towel around herself.

"The water is cold, you'll get sick," Rebekah says, helping her stand up slowly. "I brought you some clothes. Change into them and we'll get some rest. You'll stay in my room with me tonight."

Caroline nods slowly, loosely wrapping the towel around herself as Rebekah leads her over to the clothes laying on the same chair she occupied before she went into the shower before leaving the room and closing the doors once more. The blond doesn't see her bloody attire from earlier that night anywhere. Wisely it seems that someone took those clothes away before she could see them again. It was probably for the best.

Caroline stares down at the clothes that Rebekah brought in for her for a moment before drying off her hair and pulling on the shorts and large long sleeve henley shirt. It's large enough and hides her figure. The material is slightly thicker which is nice seeing as her exhausted, frightened mind is using the shirt like a shield.

Unless Caroline has the wrong impression of Rebekah, this was a man's shirt. And now that she's thinking about it, this doesn't look like something that Rebekah would wear.

Caroline steps out of the bathroom, turning off the light and stepping into the bedroom to see Rebekah throwing her clothes into the dirty clothes basket. Rebekah turns to look at her in long fluffy yellow sleep pants and a white tank top, taking in the pink shorts with the long, gray henley shirt that Caroline has to push up her arms to keep them from covering her fingers. She meets Rebekah's gaze with a little weak smile. The mansion is cold, or at least Rebekah's room is, and it makes her skin grow goosebumps.

"Hey."

Rebekah nods a bit. "Looks good. Sorry I couldn't loan you anything other than shorts. I am lacking a bit in the clothing department as of the moment. Most of my clothes are either... out of date or lost in transit." She crosses her arms over her chest. "Good thing Nik has about a million of those shirts that he can loan out. And don't worry about giving it back. He won't even notice that it's missing." She waves one of her hands around a bit before crossing them again. "Let's get some rest. You've had a long day."

"My head is bleeding. Or it was," Caroline says softly, touching the crown of her head for the tender spot but blood loss and that long, hot shower has left her exhausted and light-headed. "I don't want to bleed all over your pillows."

Rebekah shakes her head. "I'm not worried." She considers something before shrugging her shoulders. "Let me see if there is something here that we can use to wrap your head up with."

Caroline sits down on the bed, sinking into it lovingly and she lets out a sigh of relief. She wants to curl up into this bed and sleep for about a hundred years and pretend like the last few hours didn't happen. She knew that wasn't possible. But she could hope, couldn't she?

Rebekah returns a few minutes later, gauze in hand. "I can't honestly believe we have this," Rebekah says. Caroline gives her a weird look which she waves off. Rebekah climbs up onto the bed and gently looking through her hair until she finds whatever she's looking for before positioning the bandage and wrapping it around Caroline's head carefully. She sits there patiently as Rebekah cares for the wound on her head.

"What do you remember about that man you hit tonight?" Rebekah asks softly. "Do you have any idea who he was?"

"No..." Caroline rasps. "He was talking nonsense too. I guess that's what happens when someone mows you down with their car."

Rebekah clicks her tongue. "Don't say that. He walked out in front of your car. It was an accident."

"I have this nagging feeling..." Caroline says softly. "Beneath the blood and the bruising, I can't help but feel like I've seen him before. With all the questions about tonight, I'm not able to shake the feeling that I've seen him before. Which is almost worse than him being a completely unknown person. I can't even offer him the common courtesy to remember where I've seen him before. He's dead, he's got to be, and I can't even remember where I've seen him before."

She runs her hands up and down her bare legs, hoping the chill of the house would go away. She figured with how big it seemed like this house was that they would be able to afford to heat the place. Then again, maybe that is too much to ask.

"Well, it doesn't matter," Rebekah says flippantly. "Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about it?" Caroline echoes, eyebrows pulled together tightly. She stands up, finding energy in her anger, and turns to the other blond. "How can you say that, Rebekah? We are talking about me killing someone! I splattered someone across the pavement! I killed a man! How can you be so nonchalant about that?" She can hear her voice rising with each word she said. Rebekah just sits back on her legs, listening to the other girl yell at her. "And I can't even give the guy the common courtesy of remembering where I saw his freaking face! Sure, he didn't have the most spectacular or noteworthy features but the least I could do was - " She stops, mouth hanging open.

Rebekah blinks a few times. "What?"

Caroline's eyes drop to the lush, fluffy carpet under the bed for a break in the hardwood of the house. Caroline's mind is racing, desperately trying to connect the realization with a memory. Then it comes to her. Hitting her hard like a ton of bricks.

She spins around toward the door and heads for it. As soon as she breaks past the threshold into the hall she yells out, "Klaus? Elijah?" She starts heading down the hall as Rebekah calls out her name in confusion. "Klaus? Elijah?" Caroline calls again. "Marco! Marco! This house is huge, you guys, throw me a bone here!" She finds the stairs and practically tumbles down them as the two brothers in question walk into the foyer from one of the side rooms.

"Caroline?" Elijah says, bringing up the rear. "What's wrong?"

"You should be in bed," Klaus says, stopping at the edge of the stairs.

"I remembered him," Caroline says, stopping on the last step, now eye-to-eye with the middle Mikaelson sibling. "That man from the photo that Elijah showed me the other day.  
That's him. He's your friend, isn't he? Oh, Klaus, I am so so sorry. I killed him. I killed your friend!" She reaches out and cups his face, feeling shame and horror washing over her. "I am so sorry! I don't know what happened. One minute I was alone on that street and next he was there and... and..."

Klaus's eyebrows fall flat and his lips press together tightly as he lets out a slow sigh, blinking a few times. He reaches up, grabbing onto her wrists slowly. "Are you certain, Caroline? You've had a long day. Think clearly."

"He said his name was Charlie," Caroline says softly. She blinks some tears away, searching his face. She's not sure if she's hoping that they were talking about the same person or not. "Is that your friend's name? Charlie?"

Klaus sighs, closing his eyes tightly as anger plays across his features, making Caroline feel even worse than before. Okay, she's decided. She wished she had no idea who he was. He pulls himself away from her and turns around, walking back toward the room that he came out of, leaving Caroline standing there with her hands floating where Klaus's face used to be, shame-filled tears sliding down her cheeks.

Caroline lowers her hands slowly, blinking a few times when Elijah steps up in front of her with his hand out for her to take. She tilts her head to the side a bit, surprised to see him there. "Elijah?"

"Come," he says, taking her hand. "Let us talk. What did Charles say?" He leads her into the room behind Klaus. There are two couches across from one another, a coffee table, a fireplace, a wine bar and a couple of bookcases around the room. He lowers her down to one of the couches and steps away to grab her some hard liquor. She watches as Klaus pours himself a second glass since she walked into the room and downed it, looking aggravated.

"He..." Caroline says, looking down at her own glass cradled between her two hands. She takes a sip and it burns her throat but the tingle makes her feel better. At least a little bit. Taking the edge off. "He wasn't making any sense," Caroline says. "He was hurt really bad, Elijah, he wasn't thinking straight."

Elijah sits down next to her. "I know that this is hard, Caroline, but please think closely. What did he say?"

Caroline sips a bit at her drink, feeling the alcohol burn her throat before lowering the glass onto the table. "I don't know. He was talking about a dog."

"Dog?" Rebekah echoes, standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest. "Why would Nik's friend be talking about a dog? What odd last words."

Elijah stares at his sister for a moment, considering carefully, before looking back over at Caroline. "What did he say? Try and remember, Caroline. What about this dog?"

Caroline rubs at her forehead. "He called it a hybrid." That draws Klaus's attention. He turns around slowly, eyebrows pulled together tightly.

"What about the hybrid?"

Caroline shrugs. "He moved on. He was talking nonsense. He said something about witches preventing the lifting of some curse. Something about a stone with a lock on it." She rubs at her forehead. "I don't know why he would talk about a dog and witches and curses. It's like a twisted fairytale."

"I'm sorry," Rebekah cuts in when Elijah opens his mouth to say something, "but what part of that was about a dog?"

"Isn't that what a hybrid is?" Caroline asks, looking over at the other blond. "A dog of two different breeds?"

Rebekah stares back at her with her eyebrows pulled together. She blinks a few times before looking around the room for a moment, then it comes to her and she looks back over at Caroline. "Are you talking about a mutt?"

Caroline stares back at her. "Wait, then what is a hybrid?"

"It's similar," Rebekah says. "But a hybrid is two separate species, not just different breeds."

Caroline's eyebrows pull together as her fuzzy brain puts the pieces together. Caroline rubs at her forehead, groaning. "I'm such an idiot."

Klaus sits down on the coffee table, moving her glass out of the way so that he doesn't knock it over. Caroline looks at him as he leans his elbows on his knees to stare back at her. "I am so sorry, Klaus. I'm so sorry that I probably killed your friend..." Caroline says softly, shame washing over her again. There is no way to make up for ending someone's life.

Klaus takes her hands slowly, looking into her eyes. "Tell me, love. Tell me exactly what he said about the curse. About the witches."

Caroline looks down at their hands wrapped around each other, before closing her eyes and trying to recall the sputtered nonsense from the dying man in front of her just hours before. "He said something about the hybrid having to know something about the witches preventing the lifting of a curse. Something about a stone. A moonstone, or something. And something about blood being the key for a change. I don't know. I don't know. I'm sorry. It doesn't make sense to me."

"Wait," Rebekah says, twisting her head to the side. "Is this about the sun and moon curse? You're still looking for that dumb stone? Are you serious?"

Caroline looks between them, confused as Klaus with an annoyed look on his face and says, "Obviously it was all for not if it sounds like the moonstone is here." He looks back over at Caroline, pulling one of his hands away from hers and touches the mark on her cheek slowly. She recoils a bit in pain, hissing. "Was that all that he said?"

Caroline blinks a few times. "Yes..."

He stares into her eyes. "Are you certain that's everything that he said?"

Caroline nods. "Yeah."

He takes a moment, looking down at her skinned knees, turning her hand over to see the scuff on her palm, then to the henley shirt, as if seeing it for the first time. He blinks a few times, leaning back a bit. "Is that mine?"

Caroline looks down at it before nodding. "Yeah, Rebekah said you wouldn't mind."

Klaus stares back at her with a look in his eyes that she doesn't understand. "Are you in pain, Caroline? Do your wounds hurt you?"

Keenly aware of the aches and pains across her body, Caroline shrugs a little bit. "I guess."

"Do you want me to take away your pain?"

"Niklaus," Elijah says, a hint of warning in his voice.

Caroline's eyebrows pull together again. "What are you going to do?"

Suddenly, a chilling smile crosses over Klaus's face. She tilts her head a bit as his smile fades and the veins around his eyes push out against his skin, blackened and pulsating toward his eyes. She watches in horror as the sclera darkness until they are pitch black and the blue of his irises seem to glow brightly.

Caroline couldn't breathe. In that moment, that mysterious, dangerous feeling she had from him earlier suddenly makes sense. There is definitely something to fear from him. She feels herself shrink into the couch, the scream that wanted to rip from her was trapped by the squeezing of her throat. Her lips part to no sound as her eyes widens to the size of dinner plates, unable to believe what she is seeing.

"Nik," Rebekah says, not an ounce of fear in her voice, "don't do this. Please."

Klaus doesn't respond, staring intently into Caroline's eyes. "Are you afraid, Caroline?"

She couldn't lie, her frightened brain doesn't remember how. So she nods slowly, the action somehow helping her settle down. He still sounds like Klaus despite the eerie, unnatural glow of his blue eyes and the blackened veins leading to the darkened sclera.

Beneath the fear clenching at her heart, Caroline feels pity. She feels pity and shame because, in his eyes, she sees a sad man. She sees a tortured man with a long, sad life. She can see the pain in his eyes that reflects years of weight and thought and wear. Whatever saddens him now isn't something new. It's something he's carried with him for a long time. He wants her to be afraid because he knows how to deal with that feeling. He knows how to deal with it in himself, and in others.

Eyes like that are obviously not normal. Caroline doesn't know what's going on, but with eyes like that - and his canines seemed extended when he spoke, two sets of them - that it wasn't natural.

But something, deep in her heart, told her that he wasn't going to hurt her. Maybe it was because Caroline inherently always tried to find a silver lining in all that she did, but there was something about the way he was staring at her now that gave her the impression that he wasn't going to hurt her. That him scaring her was to serve another purpose. Not because she killed his friend, or because for some unexplainable other reason.

It's almost like he wants to remind himself that he shouldn't get what he wants. He wants something so bad but feels like he doesn't deserve it. He feels that he has to chase away his chance for whatever it was that he wanted, for no other reason than perhaps the pain he feels in his heart, or because long ago someone made him believe that he would never deserve anything that he wanted.

And Caroline feels bad for him. Yes, she is afraid, but she isn't without sympathy and Klaus Mikaelson and his siblings have been nothing but kind to her since the moment she met them. The least she could do was be kind back.

Slowly, carefully and before she could regret it, Caroline reaches out lightly to touch Klaus's face, the tips of her pointer and middle fingers touching the lightly pulsating veins on his cheek. The feeling is kind of gross, like skinny worms beneath the skin, but she forces it away. The shock and confusion written across his face reminds her of why she's doing this. She finds strength in the touch of vulnerability in those crazy blue eyes.

"I am scared," Caroline admits, "but I'm not without understanding. Or, sufficed to say, I want to understand. Well, try to understand, I mean."

Full red lips part as it seems like he's seeing her for the first time. "Why?" He whispers. "Aren't I a monster to you?"

Caroline swallows shamed that the first thought she had when she saw his eyes change is being thrown back at her. Her own kneejerk reaction haunts her. And hurts her. "No," she says firmly. "Monsters don't care if they're monsters. You're just different. That doesn't make you a monster." Her voice is strong, and even, but she can feel a small tremble of fear wash over her as she simply doesn't know. Their relationship is too new for her to know. At least for certain. But somehow, she feels like she knows that it's okay. That they are okay.  
Needless to say, if the siblings aren't freaking out, then they must also be the same as him. Or at least aware of what he is.

"I don't understand," Caroline admits, "and not understanding makes it scary. But if you are willing to tell me, maybe it won't be as scary anymore."

Klaus leans into her touch, closing his eyes as the veins keep pulsing. "Or," he draws out in a low whisper, "the truth will make the situation even scarier." He sighs, defeated. "You are so similar. So kind. So sweet. So gentle and open-minded. A true, beautiful sun, radiating brightly." He opens those crazy eyes, leaning in a bit more to her hand and saying, softly, "I am not afraid to admit, before my brother and sister, that even now, after all this time my heart is still yours. Always and forever."

"Nik," Rebekah says softly.

Before Caroline can even process his words he opens his mouth, showing two sets of distended fangs and bites onto his own wrist, ripping into it. He reaches to the back of her head with one hand while shoving his bleeding wrist into her mouth. The taste of blood stings her tongue before her brain tells her it's a good taste. Like chocolate. Or pretzels. It was a good taste that she liked. Once her brain shut down the part that freaked out and told her it was fine, he pulled his wrist away leaving her dazed with a short-circuiting sound in her ears.

Her hands were gripping his wrists as he now cradles her face, wiping slowly along her lips, staring into her eyes. Her eyes lock with his as she opens her bloodied mouth to ask him what the hell that was all about before something in his gaze stopped her. The veins sunk beneath his skin as the blackness in his sclera whitened up to normal.

"You will forget tonight as it was," Klaus says, pupils dancing in his eyes. "You will forget our conversation. You will forget the car accident. You will forget Charles. You did some shopping and came over to watch a bunch of movies with Rebekah. You had so much fun you lost track of time. You remember the phone call with your mother and when it was over, we gave you a little drink to help settle your nerves about seeing your mother tomorrow. You will forget about my transformation or what was said. You just relayed the conversation and we told you it would be fine. You're tired now and ready for bed."

As he was speaking Caroline's mind desperately tried to hold onto the memories of the night before they washed through her fingers like water and before she knew it, she wasn't even sure what she was holding on to other than his words. It all made perfect sense and in the place of what became black space in her mind, was filled with what he said until she couldn't remember that something else should have been there.

Caroline blinks a few times as Klaus leans back onto the coffee table, dropping his hands between his knees as he stares at her with sad, vacant eyes. A yawn washes over her as she stretches her arms over her head. "Man, I am so tired. Thanks for making me feel better about my mom, guys. I know she's going to be so mad at me tomorrow but I'll deal with that then." She looks over at the oldest brother frowning sadly at her, eyebrows pulled together tightly. "Goodnight, Elijah. And thank you."

Elijah smiles thinly, dark eyes sad. "Goodnight, Caroline. And don't thank me."

Caroline touches his shoulder before looking over at Klaus. "Goodnight, Klaus. And thank you."

His smile is as thin as Elijah's and his eyes are brimming with sadness. "Anything for you, Caroline."

Caroline smiles back at him, patting his leg before standing up and looking over at Rebekah, whose pretty blue eyes were burrowing holes into the side of Klaus's face as she shakes her head. "I can't believe you."

"Are you ready for bed, Rebekah?" Caroline asks. "I'm beat."

Rebekah looks over at her, pushing off the doorway and uncrossing her arms. "Yes, I'm ready, Caroline. Let's get out of here." She sends her brothers a look that Caroline doesn't know how to interoperate before waving her hand for the younger of the two to follow after.

Caroline makes it as far as the doorway that Rebekah's in before turning around. "Oh, and maybe you guys should throw out whatever is in that cup," she nods toward her glass on the table. At their inquisitive looks, she elaborates, "It's got a strange, irony aftertaste to it." She makes a face before turning to leave and waving her hand. "Goodnight!"

She races after Rebekah up the stairs toward the Mikaelson sister's room, exhausted and ready for bed. Who would have thought watching so many movies would be so exhausting? She crawls into Rebekah's huge king sized bed and was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.


	6. Drive

Lilah loves these long walks that they take. It's the times that Niklaus can really let himself be free. He can talk about all sorts of things forever. He's so smart, so in tune with the world around him. He can see the beauty in the world that she can't. His eyes are so wide and fresh. He looks like a little boy seeing the world for the first time. She wished she could see the world through his eyes. She feels like she sees everything in shades of gray while his sight is full color.

She sits on a fallen log as she watches him admire the nearby flowers, explaining in great detail about which berries mixed with what could make a color similar to the one of the flower, as she suspected that he could. She was enraptured by him. She could watch him all day. Nature is in his blood, as it is with all of them. His older brothers, Elijah and Finn, were born in the Old World, but not him. Klaus was the first of his siblings to be born in the New World. The nature of this place is in his blood. It's in the way he walks and talks. How he admires nature and the people around him.

Lilah is in awe of his beauty. Both his physical beauty and the beauty of his spirit. She knows that his mother is a witch and that runs in the veins of all of her children, and she can feel it. The magic of the spirits meets the magic of the land and clash of those magics makes Niklaus. He doesn't just respect nature as a witch does, or embrace it as the natives of the New World do, but loves it.

His love for it makes him see it in full color.

Lilah can appreciate the light shining in his eyes. She hates to break into his informative explanation with a sweet, "You really love this sort of thing, don't you?"

He smiles bashfully. "I do," he admits. Then the smile slowly lowers from his face and he lets out a long-winded sigh, looking defeated. "My father would kill me if he ever knew that I was still mixing. He beat me bad the last time."

Lilah frowns, wanting nothing more than to find Mikael and rip his throat out for laying a hand on Niklaus. She looks down at her hands, her knuckles are bone white as her fists are clenched so tightly that they hurt. She hates what that man does to Niklaus. And she hates that Esther just allows it to happen. She spews love for her children from her lips like prayers, yet Lilah can see the truth as clear as day.

She may care for Niklaus and his siblings, but she doesn't compare them to Mikael. She loves that barbaric Viking more than anyone else so she is willing to turn a blind eye to the suffering of her children in return for the continued attention of her husband. Lilah just couldn't understand why she loved him so much. Mikael was never even nice to Esther unless there was something she wasn't seeing - which isn't out of the realm of possibility.

"I am so sorry," Lilah says softly, having said it for the hundredth time today and meaning it every single time. "We should go somewhere, you and I, and we can be whatever we want."

Klaus smiles faintly, sadly with just a touch of hope in his eyes. "We could go anywhere. Back to the Old World, somewhere near here. Anywhere that we want."

***

Caroline wakes up the next morning after one of the best night's sleep in a long time, feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Like she could go run a mile without breaking a sweat. She looks over at her bed companion to see Rebekah is still fast asleep. Caroline pulls the covers off of herself and heads for the door. She looks back to see that Rebekah didn't so much as shift at her leaving the bed.

Caroline slips out of her room and backtracks her footsteps from the night before and makes it downstairs. It's not until she passes a mirror in one of the hallways leading into the kitchen that she notices the bandage wrapped around her head. It's slightly askew making her hair look atrocious, but it easily slips off. When she looks into it, there is a bit of darkness, like blood but she doesn't remember what it's for. She reaches up and touches her head, finding the slightly crusty part and realizes that her hair looks gross.  
She frowns distastefully, wondering if Rebekah would let her borrow her shower. No, she doesn't have any clothes. She would have to go home and shower. Ew. She feels so gross.

Caroline walks into the kitchen, spotting Elijah with a coffee cup, looking out the window, bathed in sunlight looking as dapper as always. He is always so handsome and refined.

"Good morning, Elijah!" Caroline says cheerfully, bouncing up to the island, looking at the man standing on the other side.

He turns away from the window, a friendly smile dancing across his lips. "Good morning, Caroline. I hope you had a good night's sleep."

"I did," Caroline says, then holds up the wrapping. "So... uh, when did this happen? Did I hurt myself last night?"

Elijah opens his mouth slowly, staring at the bandages wrapped around Caroline's hand loosely, thinking about something before saying, smoothly, "You don't remember?" He walks around the island, laying down the cup of coffee and cupping her face and staring into her eyes with his own pretty brown ones, his pupils dancing. "You both were in the middle of watching a movie... The... Notebook, I believe it was, and you were crying so hard that you fell off the couch and knocked your head. Remember?"

Caroline blinks a few times as the memory comes back to her. "Oh wow. I'm such an airhead," she laughs as Elijah pulls back. "I can't believe I forgot. I love that movie. I've seen it about a hundred times. It gets me every time, you know? I cry every single time." She shakes her head as he pulls back, grabbing his coffee off the counter again. "Have you ever seen it, Elijah? Been in touch with your feminine side?"

Elijah gives her a look over the rim of his coffee mug. He swallows the hot dark brown liquid before saying, "Unfortunately no. I'm not brave enough to face that. I hear girls are known for crying even after the hundredth time watching it."

Caroline grins back at him, unable to stop the giggle from escaping her. She rolls her eyes. "Moving on. So, why are you up so early?" She turns and looks at the clock on the wall. "At seven-thirty." The thought makes her sleepy again, but having seen herself in the mirror, she knows she's not going to crawl back into bed - especially Rebekah's bed - while feeling as gross as she does. She wouldn't be able to sleep in her own bed feeling as she does, let alone someone else's.

"Early riser," Elijah says, leaning his hip against the island.

Caroline gives him a look, suspecting by the dark circles starting to mar the undersides of his eyes that he wasn't being very candid with her. "Uh-huh. And why does it look like you haven't got a wink of sleep at all last night?"

Elijah smiles a bit, lowering his coffee a bit, staring into it for a moment. He lets out a little sigh before looking back into Caroline's eyes. "I find that, as much as I love my family, that they can really wear me down. It is trying, sometimes, I fear." He lays the cup down, rubbing at his forehead a bit. "It's not your problem, so you don't have to worry."

"I know it's not my problem, Elijah," Caroline says, "but it doesn't mean I can't somehow help. I'm sure being the oldest of a gaggle of misfits has earned you a few headaches." She laughs. "It can't be easy. And you have more siblings, right?"

"Yes," Elijah says. "I was one of six. From oldest to youngest go Finn, myself, Niklaus, Kol, Rebekah, and Henrik. As you know, Kol is about somewhere, running around and doing as he likes. Finn is... living the dream, as it were. And Henrik, as you know, is gone."

Caroline nods, somberly. "Yes. I'm so sorry to hear that." She looks around at the beautiful kitchen for a moment. All brand new, shiny appliances with a kitchen that hasn't got a touch of personality. In a house hardly lived in. Even though there isn't a box in sight, they just moved in with meager belongings, it seems. Or, at least Rebekah did.

"You, Rebekah, and Klaus are close," she notes.

Elijah gives a little tilt of the head, considering. "I suppose so. We have our ups and downs. There has been some... bad blood between us these last few years, but circumstance has brought four of us back together. Niklaus, Rebekah, Kol and myself. I know it won't be easy, but I do hope that we'll be able to get back to a good place."

"What made it so hard?" Caroline asks. At his curious look, she elaborates, "I mean, why is there bad blood?"

"Let us say, my brother, Niklaus, isn't a very trusting person by nature. He feels this compulsive need to be in control of everything. He only ever really sees the worse in things and because of that... he does less than favorable things." Elijah sighs.

Caroline considers for a moment, before saying, "I kind of get it. I'm pretty controlling too. Sometimes I need to have absolute control over things so that I know how it's going to end. I know what's going to happen. Personally, I hate surprises. I hate them in the way where they could be bad. I love good surprises, especially if I know about them first. But my controlling personality comes from my anxiety." She shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know. I mean, he's your brother, so you know him better than I do, but..." she hesitates, wondering if she was overstepping. She probably was, but Elijah looks like he's listening, at least keeping an open mind, which is a relief. "But... sometimes we are so close to something - or someone - that we can't see what others do."

Elijah looks down at his coffee, honestly thinking about her words. Giving it more consideration than she thought that he would.

Caroline touches his shoulder, making him look at her. "Or I don't know what I'm talking about," she says, laughing lightly. She pulls her hand back. "All I know is that while tonight is a bit of a blur, I do remember one thing clearly from then that I've noted before; your brother seems like he's carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders. I'm sure you understand more than I do, but... well, I'm nosy so..." she shrugs her shoulders and smiles.

Elijah smiles softly. "It's alright. I suppose sometimes perhaps we forget to look at things impartially. I will consider what you've said." He brings the coffee mug back up to his lips and takes a long sip before saying, "Thank you for the advice."

Caroline shakes her head. "Don't say that. I'm just being nosy. By the way, have you seen my phone?"

Elijah nods. "Charging on the counter behind you."

Caroline spins around to see it sitting in a corner on the black and white marble countertop doing as he said. She walks over and grabs it, noting a scrape across the screen protector that she doesn't remember being there before dismissing it and turning it on. Elijah goes back to where he was before she walked in, looking out the window at the bright, rising sun. Once Caroline's phone turns on, she unplugs it and sits down at the stools to go through the messages and the phone calls, listening to the voice mails and all of that.

"Man, mom is gonna kill me," Caroline mumbles, rubbing at her forehead. "Oh! Bonnie!"

She messages back Bonnie, apologizing and hoping that they could still meet up for breakfast. Thankfully she woke up so crazy early so that she would still be able to get home, shower, change and meet up with Bonnie. She looks up at Klaus walks into the room, her eyebrows raising toward her hairline.

"Good morning," she greets as he crumples up a piece of paper and throws it into the trash.

He smiles upon seeing her. "Good morning, Caroline. What has you up so early? Can't sleep?" He walks around the counter so that he's standing next to her.

Caroline shrugs. "No, I had a great night's sleep, but I'm an early riser by nature, unfortunately. But it's a good thing for that, I have to get home, shower and go out to meet my friend, Bonnie." She stands up, stretching her arms up over her head, rising up onto her tip-toes while the joints in her body pop. "I should get going." She looks at Klaus. "Thanks for letting me stay over. I don't want to wake Rebekah, but once she gets up, can you let her know that she is more than welcome to join us for breakfast and I'll text her the address of where we meet up?"

"Sure thing, love." There is a moment of consideration, his blue eyes lower to the wrapping on the table, lips parting slowly. "Those bandages..." He looks up at her.

"Oh, see I forgot that I fell off the couch last night while Rebekah and I were watching The Notebook, but Elijah reminded me." Caroline pauses, remembering her gross hair and is suddenly very self-conscious of it. She's got to get the heck out of here and go shower before this leaves a nasty, lasting impression. "I'm kind of a mess," she laughs. "I need to go home."

"No," Klaus says, a half-smile crosses his full red lips. "You're fine."

"I have to go," She stresses, rolling her eyes. "I'll see you guys! Tonight, maybe?"

Klaus looks torn for a moment, considering something when Elijah cuts in, moving to stand next to his brother. "We have a lot of errands to run today, but we shall try to at least stop by tonight to admire all your hard work."

Caroline rolls her eyes. "Thanks. Besides, it's our hard work, remember. You guys helped out too. But don't let me get in the way of your business. I'm going to head out! Pass my message on to Rebekah, okay?" She grabs the wrapping off the counter and throws it away in the trash.

Caroline figures she was going to have to wash the clothes she borrowed and she didn't want to wake Rebekah after keeping her up all night, she deserved some rest. She'll be back for her clothes and she's wash and returns Rebekah's when she does. Klaus waves Elijah off and follows Caroline to the door where she slides her shoes on where she doesn't remember leaving them but there they are.

"Did I bring my purse into the house last night?" She asks as he stops next to her.

He blinks a few times, trying to remember. "I don't believe so, no."

"I don't remember," Caroline says honestly. "Man, last night is like a black hole," Caroline mutters, ducking under Klaus's arm as he opens the door. Caroline finds her car in the driveway behind what she can only assume was Elijah and Klaus's cars. She walks over to it, peaking into the passenger side window to see her purse sitting on the seat. "Oh, thank goodness. At least my car wasn't broken into."

"In this terrible neighborhood, it's a miracle," Klaus says, mildly amused.

Caroline grins at him, casting a glance off in the distance to see other big, mansion-like homes for the wealthy people in Mystic Falls. "I'll see you, Klaus. Hopefully, it'll be tonight, if not, then around." They exchange smiles before she walks around her car. She spares him another look, seeing the sadness in his eyes again. She has to wonder if Elijah sees what she sees, or if perhaps she's perhaps just reading too much into all of this and sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. It wouldn't be the first time.

She climbs into her car and looks around for her keys, finding them in her purse. She puts them into the ignition and turns it on before looking up at the windshield, immediately getting the feeling that this wasn't her windshield. It is pristine and clean and unfamiliar. Her eyebrows pull together tightly, certain she hasn't gone to the car wash recently.

As hard as she tries to remember what happened to her windshield, she can't. It's like her mind diverts her thoughts toward the movies from the night before, which just aggravates her a bit. She rubs at her forehead, deciding that it probably didn't matter and forces that thought away. She looks at Klaus, wiggles her fingers at him before pulling out of the driveway and onto the street. He grabs at his wrist in front of himself, watching her with a little nod of his head. It takes a minute of driving around before she figures out where she is and makes her way home.

Liz isn't there when she gets home, which is probably for the best. Bonnie texted her back while she was driving, giving her a place and a time to meet up, and Caroline knows that they are going to have to talk about her vanishing act. Caroline takes a long, hot shower, texts the address and time to Rebekah and relaxes on the couch, going through her other messages, apologizing to her friends for worrying them before heading out to meet her friend.

Bonnie is waiting for her at the cafe even though she's about fifteen minutes early.

Caroline sits down in front of the dark-skinned girl and immediately starts apologizing. "I'm really sorry, Bonnie. I know it wasn't cool for my phone to die and to worry everyone especially with all the scary stuff with animal attacks and all of that. I didn't mean to worry anyone. I was over at Rebekah's house and we were watching movies and I fell asleep..." she trails off, eyebrows pulling together, "after I fell off the couch and bonked my head really hard, which seemed like it was a bad decision, but whatever and I'm really, really, really sorry and I love you and you have to forgive me."

Bonnie laughs, rolling her eyes. "Stop, Caroline, stop." She reaches out and takes Caroline's hand. "Listen, it was scary and we were all worried about you. I'm not mad, just concerned. Are you okay?"

Caroline squeezes the other girl's thin hands. "I'm okay. As I said, I was over at Rebekah's house and fell asleep while we were watching movies. I'm sorry that I scared you, I really am. I didn't mean for any of that."

Bonnie nods, smiling crookedly. "I know you didn't. Your mom is going to kill you, no doubt, but if you need it, I forgive you."

Caroline lets out a deep sigh of relief. "Yes," she laughs, shaking her head and squeezing Bonnie's hands a little bit tighter. "Yes, I definitely needed to hear that."

"So..." Bonnie says slowly, "You and Rebekah seem like good friends."

Caroline grins back at her friend. "Oh yeah. Rebekah is great. And her brothers too. Rebekah's going to be coming to school with us, did I tell you that? But she's going to be a senior. But she doesn't know anyone really yet. I mean, she met Matt twice now and she met you yesterday, but she doesn't really know anyone else, so we're going to have to make her feel welcome. Us, Elena. We could invite Matt and Tyler, I guess. Just a small little welcoming party or something to help her feel more at home."

Bonnie shrugs her shoulders. "Sure. I guess I don't mind. But nothing too big, okay? We don't want to overwhelm her and I'm not sure if Elena is quite ready to go back to partying and stuff. Plus... Matt might not be the best person to invite..."

"It should be okay, right? It's been months and he seemed fine when I was with him a few days ago."

"Caroline," Bonnie says, her eyebrows pulling together, "They broke up. And not very cleanly. You know Matt was crazy about her and they have a lot of history. I think it's better if you don't force it. I think we should wait a few days into the school year and see if they can stand to be in the same room as each other before forcing them to interact in a friendly manner."

Caroline pouts, finally pulling her hands back and crossing her arms on the table. "You're right, I know you are, but still. I wish this weirdness would just be over and done with." She sighs.

Bonnie leans back in her seat, shrugging her shoulders. "I do too, don't forget, I'm actually friends with Matt too. I hate that the two of them haven't been able to even look at each other. Matt is sweet, I hate that he is as hurt as he is."

"He keeps looking after her with sad, blue puppy dog eyes," Caroline sighs. "But it's been months! Don't you think he's over it by now?"

Bonnie presses full lips into a think line, shrugging her shoulders again. "I don't know, Care, I guess we'll find out when school starts."

Caroline leans back into her chair, pouting even more. She was really hoping that the start of their Junior year was going to be a clean slate, fun, and drama-free. But that was probably just a pipe dream. She knew that growing up with the same people for her entire life, everyone tends to know everything about each other. Every few years, though, someone new comes along to draw the school's attention on something that isn't themselves, and Caroline feels it's safe to assume that Rebekah was going to be that person.

Caroline, admittedly, wanted to solidify their friendship before anyone else could try and sink their teeth into her.

Rebekah and Caroline just click. There is something about Rebekah that is just so familiar.

"You're right, I'm sorry," Caroline says, running her hands through her damp hair. "So, how was Whitmore with your grams?"

Bonnie's eyebrow quirks a bit but she moves on. "It was fine. I was helping her organize papers and get stuff in line for the new school year. You know, typical TA stuff except I'm not getting paid for it." She rolls her eyes, but there is a smile curling her lips a bit.   
But Caroline could tell that Bonnie, being one of Caroline's oldest friends, was enjoying the time with her Grams. Despite her Grams being kind of looney, talking about witches and magic, but Bonnie definitely enjoyed the time she spent with her Grams. Without Bonnie's mom in the picture, her Grams took over at the maternal figure in her life.

Caroline is a little envious, to be honest. But this is the first time she's seen her friend in what feels like forever, she's not going to ruin it by getting too in her head when she shouldn't be.

"That sounds fun," Caroline says sincerely, knowing that spending that time with her grams is very important to her.

"Have you spoken to Elena?" Bonnie asks after a moment of silence.

Caroline shakes her head. "No. I mean, she texted me and called me last night, but that's it. As you know she wasn't at cheer camp and she hasn't really been in the mood to hang out or spend any time together. I know that she's still reeling from her parents'   
death and all, so I'm trying really hard not to be pushy... so... yeah. I know that she needs space and has a good reason for turning me down almost every time I've asked her to hang out."

Bonnie's eyebrows pull together tightly. "Caroline - "

Caroline holds up her hand to stop her friend. "I'm not mad. I get it. Well, I can understand. She needs time. I'm not trying to take any of it to heart. She needs a bit of space and when she's ready to move on, I'll be ready for her."

Bonnie gives her this pitying look that Caroline recognizes, and it burns her. It burns her because she knows that Elena hasn't been avoiding Bonnie. She knows that some of those times she was turned down by Elena it was because she was already with Bonnie and while she doesn't for a moment question their love for her, she also knows that she can be sort of insensitive and Elena can't be around people like her for now. She needs people like Bonnie, she is sweet and wonderful and loving and always say the right thing.

Caroline got to spend her time with Elena after the accident when she and her kid brother Jeremy came to stay with Caroline and her mom while things got sorted out for the Gilbert siblings. Caroline was there for the many nights Elena cried herself to sleep, refused to eat, and would force a smile that no one for a moment believed was real. Caroline admired Elena's strength and honestly doesn't blame her for not really wanting to spend time with her.

It doesn't mean that Caroline isn't extremely lonely. And she meant what she said to Elijah earlier, her anxiety makes her crazy. It makes her speak faster than her brain can keep up and in those moments she is known to say inconsiderate things that she regrets later. She knows that she's said the wrong thing to Elena more times than she cares to admit, seeing as she's never had to deal with death before, and she knows that it's hurt her friend. But Elena wouldn't blow up at her for it, which made Caroline feel worse.  
She wants Elena to be okay again, and if giving her a bit of space will do that then so be it. She will wait.

"She'll come around, I promise," Bonnie says to break the longer than necessary pause. "You're a good friend, Caroline. Don't forget it. She loves you, okay?"

"Okay," Caroline says, hopeful that her best friend's words were true. Despite how Elena unintentionally makes her feel at times, Caroline does love her and only wishes for the best for her. And Bonnie, too.

"So, Rebekah isn't coming today?" Bonnie asks easily, but there is a lilt to her voice that doesn't sound right.

"Huh? Oh, no, she's coming," Caroline says, her eyebrows pulling together a bit.

"Why didn't you guys show up together? I mean, you spent the night together last night, right? That's why you didn't go home?" Bonnie asks, staring at her. Caroline raises an eyebrow, wondering where this not-so-flippant tone is coming from.

"I needed to shower and change. Why?"

Bonnie shakes her head. "Nothing. I'm just asking."

"Good morning!"

Caroline and Bonnie both turn to see Rebekah walking over to them. They both give their greetings and whatever was up with Bonnie just moments ago is gone now, which is a relief. Now that they were all there, Bonnie waves over the waiter for the drink order, after that they peruse the menu and give their order when he comes back with their drinks.

"So, tell me about yourself, Rebekah," Bonnie says. "We don't get a lot of new faces here in Mystic Falls."

Rebekah runs her fingers through pin-straight blond strands. "Not much to say, really. We've moved around a lot throughout my life."

"Any family?"

"A bunch of brothers," Rebekah says. "Three of which I live with now. Well, two, for now, seeing as we have no idea where my brother Kol ran off to. So it's just Nik, Elijah and myself. Which suits me fine." She shrugs her shoulders. "What about the two of you?"   
She looks back and forth between Caroline and Bonnie.

"It's just my parents and me," Caroline says, "but my dad lives elsewhere with his boyfriend Steve."

Rebekah's perfect eyebrows quirk up a bit, with a little, "Hmm."

"It's just me and my dad," Bonnie says, twisting one of the long, perfect curls in her hair a bit. "And my Grams, I suppose."

"You're lucky to have so many siblings," Caroline says. "I wish I had siblings."

"That's how you know someone doesn't have siblings," Rebekah laughs. "I love my brothers, truly I do, but they can be a real pain sometimes." Somewhat similar to what Elijah said that morning. Maybe there is some validity to what she says. Or maybe the Mikaelson family is a mess. Well, no messier than her own, she hopes.

"This is fun," Caroline says, grinning between the two girls. "Now if we have Elena we would be the perfect power group."

***

The donation drive that night was a success. Naturally, the town showed up to show their support for the Mystic Falls Historical Society and Caroline was commended by Mayor Lockwood for her good work and after all those long, exhausting hours, the donation drive was done. After it was all over, Caroline met with the volunteers and thanked them all one more time for all of their hard work before reminding them to show up bright and early the next morning to put everything away.

Klaus and Elijah showed up pretty late into the drive to pick up Rebekah. Rebekah conned Elijah into coming to see something, leaving Klaus and Caroline to walk around a bit to admire the booths and talk. She loved listening to him admire the community of their little town, reminding him faintly of New Orleans. Caroline has never been to New Orleans but Klaus talks of it fondly, which is nice.

There isn't as much sadness in his eyes now.

The gym probably isn't going to cut it next year, with how busy it is, this drive is going to have to be held somewhere else. Caroline has to link her arm through Klaus's to not lose him in the crowd. Once they made their way through the crowd again and back to Elijah and Rebekah, they separate and Caroline says goodbye to her new friends and goes in search of Bonnie.

After the night was over, true to her word, Liz followed her home in her police car to ensure she got there safe. Then she got to sit on the couch and retell the same story over and over again until Caroline's annoyance lead her to just leave and go to bed for the night. She exclaimed that she loved her and would see her in the morning.


	7. The Woods

"I would love to go around the world with you," Lilah says, twirling a long strand of blond hair around her finger.

Niklaus abandons his berries and kneels down in front of her, taking her hands and resting them on her thighs. "I think that's a splendid idea, Lilah. Together we can travel the world."

Lilah's eyes sparkle as the love for him swells in her chest. She has always - and probably will always - hold this soft spot in her heart for him. She has always known about his crush on her, feeling his eyes on her no matter where she went. She knew, though, that at first, before she came around that his eyes followed that of beautiful, etherial Tatiana, same as his brother.

Sweet, honorable Elijah. Lilah always liked Elijah. He always tried to do what was best. He tried to look after his younger siblings, helping deflect Mikael's anger once it gets directed - specifically at Niklaus. But the way those sweet, gentle brown eyes follow Tatiana around wherever she goes remains. Elijah still pines after Lilah's beautiful cousin and most people believe that Niklaus does too. The only ones who don't are Elijah and Kol, as far as Lilah knows. They are the only two who know that Niklaus moved on.

Even Esther, for all her preaching about her love for her children, still talks to Elijah and Niklaus about their shared love of Tatiana, blind to what has become more and more clear to Lilah.

"Lilah, Niklaus."

Lilah pulls her blue eyes away from the young man in front of her to the man of her thoughts himself. Niklaus jumps for a moment, the horror that danced across his features as for a split second he was terrified that it was Mikael that found them, not his older brother.

"Hello, Elijah," Lilah says as the fear wanes fro his expression. He pushes himself up to his feet, relief coloring his features as he turns to face his brother. Lilah climbs to her feet as well.

"Brother," Niklaus says, shoulders slumping a bit. "Is something wrong?"

"Unfortunately, your day of fun is coming to an end, brother. Mother has demanded that all of us return home before it gets too late. Tonight is the night of the full moon after all." Elijah looks between the two of them with a soft expression. A good, kind big brother who only wants what is best for his little brother. There is thanks in his eyes when they meet Lilah's, for the small smile that Niklaus sends her way.

"I suppose it is getting late," Niklaus agrees, nodding at his brother, before smiling gently at Lilah. "Would you mind it terribly if I walked you home?"

Lilah smiles back. "Thank you, Niklaus, but I have something I must do. Respect your mother's wishes and go back with your brother." At his troubled look, she reaches forward and touches his arm, staring into his eyes. "I will be fine, trust me, okay? I will be fine. No werewolves will be killing me tonight. Promise."

***

To appease and alleviate some of the anger in Liz for that night she didn't come home, Caroline decided to stay home. She organized the clean up for the donation drive and spent the first half of the next day doing just that. Once it was cleaned up, she made sure to go straight home, like she promised Liz she would. She made sure that everything was ready for when she went back to school, she even went into her backyard and prepared her cheer routine. She spent hours back there going through it over and over again.

She's getting ready for school the first day, alone, seeing as her mom wasn't there when she got up in the morning. She's getting dressed with the television on as background noise as she towel dries her hair and stops when the reflection of the t.v in the mirror catches her attention. She sees the pictures of Darren Malloy and Brooke Fenton being the latest victims of an animal attack.

Caroline turns around to stay at the t.v, walking over to the edge of her bed and sits down, watching the newscast in silence. They were reported to be coming home from a concert when they hit something in the road, left their car and was attacked and killed by the animal. Caroline feels this slice of pity and shame cut her in the chest. This could have been her on the news. She's pretty sure that this is what her mother must have felt when Caroline didn't come home. That her daughter's face could appear on the t.v.

Caroline feels bad, promising herself to be more careful.

Caroline turns off the t.v and walks into the bathroom to continue getting ready. She doesn't intentionally want to scare anyone, especially in regards to her personal safety. Caroline feels bad for making all of her friends and her mom worry that she was going to appear on the morning news: Sheriff's daughter, Caroline Forbes mauled by animals

The blond shivers, shaking the thought out of her mind. She has to do something in honor of these people that were lost these last few weeks. She wants to do something to help, but that tiny little voice in the back of her head told her that she was just being fake. Overdramatic. Doing something to remember them without having known any of them makes her seem fake.

She hates that little voice in the back of her head. That little voice that wants to stain her every action. She hates it because the surge of desire swelling in her chest to want to do  
something is stomped out by that deceptive little voice. She hates the power that little voice has over her. And she hates how quickly it killed her rationality to do something.

She shouldn't have to know these people to want to give their families a bit of ease. Yet it feels like she's being an attention-seeking fake, all because she just realized how her own friends and family must have felt that night they thought that she was missing. Now she doesn't know what to do. She wants to do something, but she has no idea what.

Defeated, Caroline turns off everything in the house and heads to school with her shoulders slumped. Once she gets to school, nice and early so that she can get her locker organized and heads to the cafeteria to claim their old table from last year. She pulls out a spiral notebook and begins to plan out the next few weeks. She's got cheer practice, back to school parties and committees that she was going to need to organize. Oh, and the comet festival is in a few days that she has to reach out and help with.

Caroline rubs at her forehead a bit, looking down at all the notes jotted down, neat and orderly, just the way she liked it. She even went so far as to have it color-coded. Days, events, plans, everything was it's own color and left her paper looking like rainbow stripes. Leaning back and blurring her eyes a bit left her brain satisfied with the array of colors.

"Ooh, pretty. I like the colors."

Caroline looks up, a huge grin spreading across her face as Rebekah stands over her. Beautiful, alluring, brilliant Rebekah. Caroline squeals, jumping to her feet and throwing her arms around the other blond. She hugs her friend tightly. Even though it's only been a few days since she last saw her, Caroline and Rebekah have been texting nonstop day in and out since she last saw her. She's texted Rebekah more in the last few days than she's said to Elena and Bonnie combined in the last month, which is insane.

But Caroline is so happy to have her friend here with her.

They sway back and forth, hugging tightly before separating and sitting down at the table. They go over schedules for the day, seeing that they have a few classes together.

"Okay, well, you're going to be my partner in all the projects in those classes," Caroline says, grinning broadly.

Rebekah nods. "Agreed. I never really got to do any of those things before..." Rebekah says softly before she catches the curious look on Caroline's face and feels like she has to elaborate, "I've been homeschooled my whole life. I never really got the experience of high school seeing as my family moved around a lot. This is the first place in some time that we've been able to settle. As you know, Niklaus is difficult and boorish and tends not to make friends wherever he goes and so we never really get to stay anywhere for long."

"I don't know," Caroline says, shrugging her shoulders. "I like Klaus. I think we're getting to be good friends."

Rebekah rolls her eyes. "That just goes to show how good your taste in friends is. Not in Nik's ability to make them."

Caroline gives the other blond a playful look. "I don't know. I think I'm doing pretty well for myself."

Rebekah grins back at her. "At least when it comes to me, darling. But I suppose it's safer to say it this way; I love my brothers and honestly, Nik is my favorite brother despite how much he riles me up sometimes, but you, Caroline, have terrible taste in men. And I say that with all the love in the world."

Caroline rolls her eyes, closing up her notebook while shaking her head. "You almost make it seem like you want me and your brother to get together," Caroline mumbles, pretending to be annoyed to hide her embarrassment.

"Oh," Rebekah says, "I do."

Caroline shoots her friend a strange look, surprised by that. The only one of her really close friends with a brother is Jeremy, Elena's brother, and she couldn't imagine going out with him in a million years. He's just so... Jeremy! But she always thought that it was against the girl code to go after the brother of her friend. But what does it mean if she's actively giving her permission to..?

No, Caroline can't think about that. She doesn't have a crush on Rebekah's brother! She barely knows him! Besides, he's older, beautiful, heavily accented, devilishly handsome Klaus Mikaelson. He's the type of guy that women just fall over themselves to just be able to look in his direction. There is no way someone like Klaus Mikaelson would be interested in someone like her. Not that she's at all interested.

The weird look she gives the other blond makes Rebekah say, "You would be great for Nik."

Caroline gives him another look. "Do you really believe that?" Rebekah nods without hesitation like it was the easiest thing in the world for her to decide. Caroline's mind is whirling. "That I would..." She shakes her head, laughing at the corny, idiocy of this conversation. She can't believe they are having it. "You say that, yet you just said that I have terrible taste in men. You know you're talking about your own brother, right?"

"You would be great for Nik," Rebekah says, shrugging her shoulders, organizing her pile of jell pens. "He would just be terrible for you. And as much as I love him, he is far less than you deserve and perhaps the worst thing that could ever happen to you."

Caroline dismissed all of this as Rebekah's mindless ramblings. She's usually saying strange things about history. She talks about times long ago as if she was there, correcting historical jokes that Caroline really doesn't have any room making. She also makes a lot of cryptic remarks about monsters that go bump in the night. About vicious and dangerous things in the world.

So Caroline just brushes off her words, rolling her eyes and gathering up all of her jell pens and putting them into her backpack.

***

"So," Elena says as they sit in their last class for the day, "who is this Rebekah person that I've been hearing about? Bonnie tells me that you guys are really fast friends." Her pretty brown eyes don't match the smile on her face. But she finds relief in not having to talk about something that isn't herself or how she's feeling about being that.

Elena was always good at that. Phrasing things to make it seem like it was about others while somehow making that angry, evil little voice in her head whispers that somehow Elena was showing her up once more. But there is no rationale behind it. Caroline hates that little voice in the back of her head because Elena didn't do anything wrong. Elena never did anything wrong. Elena was wonderful and Caroline loves her, she does.

It's the evil little voice in the back of her head that she hates. The one that feeds unnecessarily into her insecurities. Elena did nothing to deserve those evil thoughts that make themselves swirl around in the back of her mind. She hated it. She loves Elena, but whenever those little whispers creep into the back of her skull, she feels like she has failed. She failed Elena, she failed herself, she failed everyone she claimed to love.

Caroline forces that evil little voice into the back of her mind as strong as she can, and squashes the feeling as deep into her gut as she could. She hated feeling like that. She hated thinking like that.

"We really clicked,' Caroline says, forcing herself to ignore that feeling of insecurity swelling in her chest. There isn't a reason for it. "She really is great."

Elena smiles kindly. "I can't wait to meet her."

And as quickly as she pushed it away, that feeling comes back full force and Caroline realizes, with absolute disgust in herself, that she wasn't sure she wanted them to meet. It was inevitable, obviously, seeing as they were in the same friend group now, but Caroline isn't sure if she wants Elena and Rebekah to meet just yet. It's selfish, but she is afraid that Rebekah is going to love Elena more than her. Because everyone does. There isn't anything about Elena to not love.

There is something about Rebekah that Caroline has never seen in another. Despite all of the love between Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline, the latter most of the three of them knows that there is something special about the relationship shared between the former two. They were all best friends, but Elena and Bonnie's relationship was far stronger than even that. Caroline isn't sure what it is, but she knows it's true. If the three of them together are best friends, she's not sure what the stronger word is to describe the two of them.

And despite the trail of thought that lead her here, she does love Elena. She really does.

Caroline doesn't want to talk about this anymore. She wants to talk about something else, or someone else, specifically. "So, have you spoken more with the new guy? Stefan Salvatore? I saw you oogling him in class." Caroline grins at her friend, forcing those feelings away for good.

Elena shakes her head. "What? No, I'm not oogling him. We're friends. And we just met."

"He's really cute," Caroline says, leaning in closer to Elena. "Are you going to ask him out?"

Elena gives her a look. "No, Care. I'm not looking for anything right now. I mean, with everything going on in my life, and everything with Matt too..." she trails off, shaking her head again, looking tired and Caroline immediately feels bad for her words, wishing she could take them back. "I mean, I would like to be his friend, but I'm not sure if I think of him like that."

Caroline backs down, not wanting to hurt her friend more with her words. She knows that Elena feels bad about the way things ended with Matt and her mind is still preoccupied with everything that happened with her parents, plus now it seems like Jeremy is starting to go off the deep end if what Caroline is hearing through the grapevine, but she's not going to bring that up, because it's disrespectful. She's not going to put more fuel into the emotional fire. Not for Elena, especially after all the crap she's still going through.

But realizing she may have hurt Elena's feelings somehow - or maybe because she feels disgusting for her own thoughts about her friend - Caroline reaches over the space  
separating their desks and places a comforting hand on her friend's stick sized, tan arm, giving it a squeeze and looking into her eyes. "I am really sorry, Elena. For everything. I know sometimes I run my mouth without thinking, and I'm sorry. You know I love you, right?"

Elena smiles that beautiful Elena smile where Caroline's heart melts with love for her wonderful friend. That is one of the old Elena smiles, the one stripped of sadness and pain, just radiant and beautiful. Elena takes her hand off of her arm and cradles it between her two, staring back into Caroline's blue eyes with her brown ones, saying, "I know, Care. And it's okay, I'm fine. And I love you too."

***

Caroline stares down at her phone, checking the time with a frown on her lips. She looks around at the party-going highschoolers no doubt trashing the woods. Her blue eyes use the huge fire and the lamps set aside to scan the crowd again for the familiar face she's looking for. She sees Bonnie, talking with Matt, who keeps shooting looks over at Elena, who's talking to Stefan Salvator while the person that Caroline is really waiting for, can't be seen.

She knows about the animal attacks still going on, but she also knows that her mother is nearby. Every year they have one of these parties and the cops always hang around to ensure that no one drives home drunk. It's one of those unspoken rules. Caroline knows this is the same as every year, except this time they are going to be on the look out for more than underage drinking.

Finally, she gives up and goes to her contacts and hits dial. The phone rings twice before Rebekah picks up.

"I'm late, I know. I just caught up doing other things," Rebekah says, and Caroline can practically see the girl waving her hand around. "You're on speaker, by the way, Caroline. Nik is in the car with me." And now she can see her rolling her eyes too.

But Caroline isn't so surprised by that, with the consistent animal attacks still going on and how her brother dotes on her, Caroline would be surprised if Klaus didn't come to supervise his sister's safety out in the dangerous backwoods.

"Hi, Klaus!" Caroline greets, feeling a smile cross her face. At least she'll have someone to talk to if they are both here, seeing as Klaus won't know anyone else there and probably wouldn't really care to.

"Evening, love," Klaus says warmly and Caroline looks down at her feet to see her toes wiggling for some god-awful reason. She forces them to stop.

"I was just calling to make sure that you were okay, Rebekah. I was worried that you might have gotten lost," Caroline says, tucking a loose blond strand of hair behind her ear. "The party is fun, but I've been abandoned. I could use some company."

"Oh, you poor dear," Rebekah says sweetly. "I'll be there soon. Just, stay around people, alright. Don't go anywhere alone."

Caroline rolls her eyes. "You are so protective, Rebekah. I'm fine. I'm right next to the fire pit."

"Are you drinking?"

Caroline blinks, looking down at the red solo cup sitting on the stump next to her. It's just about empty. She's pretty sure Rebekah wouldn't care about underage drinking, seeing as she's going to party with it, but Klaus is actually a legal adult. He could actually get in trouble for knowing. "Maybe?"

"You scare me to death," Rebekah grumbles. "Please don't drink alcohol next to a fire pit. The last thing I want if for you to drunkenly fall in."

Caroline definitely hadn't thought of that. She leans down and picks up her drink, happy that it was only her first and she had been nursing it for a while so she doesn't feel the effects yet, and takes a few, safe steps back, away from the fire. "Okay, I've moved," she informs them, drowning down the last bit of her drink. "I just wish I wasn't standing over here by myself like a loser."

"No friends to accompany you?" Klaus asks, making conversation.

"Yes," Rebekah drawls. "What about your friends? Bonnie and who was the other? Elena? Where are they?"

"Bonnie is talking with Matt, who's giving Elena sad puppy-dog eyes, while she is busy talking with Stefan," Caroline sighs.

"Stefan is there?" Rebekah asks slowly. Then she says something to Klaus says sounds like, "I told you I saw him. Stefan Salvatore."

"Yeah," Caroline says, then watches as Elena walks over to Bonnie and Matt and Stefan makes his way over to her. Or, specifically, probably the beer tank next to her, as it's the closest to him. "Do you know him?"

"Caroline," Klaus say calmly, "we are almost there. Whatever you have to do, stay away from Stefan Salvator."

Caroline has to pull her phone away and look at it perplexed, unable to understand if she heard what she thought she did. She stares at the screen of her phone as it goes from black to Rebekah's name as if it will somehow spell out what Klaus could have meant by that. She brings the phone to her ear to ask, "Why? What's wrong? Do you know him? He's on his way over here if you want to talk to him."

"Caroline," Rebekah says, her voice pitched with what could only be what Caroline assumes as worried, "stay awa-"

"Hey," Stefan says, stopping next to her. "You're Caroline, right?"

Caroline studies him a moment, wondering what Rebekah and Klaus could have been telling her to stay away from. He had an open expression on his face. His eyes are a pretty dark green color and there is something friendly about them. Caroline had one class with him, but he was way too busy oogling Elena to have noticed her, so the fact that he knows her name on day two was unbelievable.

"I am," Caroline says, pulling her phone away from her ear so that they could talk. "You're Stefan, right? Welcome to Mystic Falls."

"Welcome back," he amends for her. "I used to live here a long time ago. Family ties and all." His smile is friendly.

"Right," Caroline says, "Salvatore is the name of one of the Founding Families. Any relation to Zack Salvatore?

He leans over to turn on the nozzle for more beer to fill his solo cup. He seems friendly enough, but he also looks... nervous? Maybe intimidated. Elena tends to do that to guys. She's so pretty, it's hard not to.

"He's uh, my uncle, actually," Stefan says, leaning up to look down into her eyes. He hesitates, looking around before leaning in closer and asking, "Forgive me if this is none of my business, but are you okay? Elena was telling me about how you went missing the other night and I was wondering if you were okay." He studies her expression closely. "Did something happen?"

Caroline's mind goes back to that night, hearing her lips say, "No, I was at my friend's house, watching a lot of movies and lost track of time."

Stefan's eyebrows pull together slowly like there was something wrong with her story. He looks around again before leaning in closer. He looks like he's suspicious about something. "Do you mind if I ask what movies you watched?"

"The Notebook..." Caroline says slowly, her own eyebrows pulling together.

"Anything else?" He asks, starting to look a bit relieved.

Caroline opens her mouth, pauses, then frowns. She blinks a few times, trying to recall that night a bit clearer. "Uh... we watched... we..." She blinks a few more times before looking at the stoney, unhappy expression on Stefan's face. "I don't remember," she admits. She tries to remember what else they could have watched, but all she remembered what the Notebook. And falling off the couch because she was a slobbery mess.

"I see," Stefan says slowly. He steps closer and places a hand on her shoulder, staring into her eyes and says, so softly she had to strain her ears to hear him. "Forget the questioning. We talked about the party and how you were having fun."

He pulls back and Caroline stares at him, blinking a few times. "Stefan?"

"Sorry to bother you," Stefan says, holding up his drink. "I'll see you in class tomorrow, alright?"

Before she could even form another word, he was disappearing back into the thong of people, heading back toward Elena. Caroline watches him go, blinking rapidly when Bonnie steps up next to her. "Hey, are you okay?"

Caroline jumps, throwing her hand to her chest, the corner of her phone hitting her in the chest plate. "Bonnie, you scared me. What did you say?"

"I asked if you were okay," Bonnie says, giving her a hard look. "What did you and Stefan talk about?"

Caroline opens her mouth, mind whirling before a scream cuts her off. It was shrill and sharp and made the entire woods fall silent as everyone starts looking around for who made that noise. It was definitely more terrifying and less playful than the occasion calls for. Bonnie and Caroline both share a look and start following the flow of the crowd toward the sound of the scream.

That's when, through the crowd of people, Caroline spots Vicki Donovan in the arms of Jeremy Gilbert, blood pouring out of the hole in the side of her neck. She was so pale, unmoving even as she was laid down and the pressure was applied to the wound and someone demanded that 9-1-1 be called. Caroline remembered her phone still clutched in her hand, realized she was still on the phone with Rebekah. Without explanation, Caroline hangs up and calls emergency responders, watching as other members of the crowd do the same.

She was no expert, certainly, she wasn't a doctor either, but Vicki Donovan definitely looked dead.

***

The place had started to clear out by the time Rebekah and Klaus made it to the party. There was police everywhere and Vicki Donovan was rushed to the hospital. Bonnie offered to take her The Grill so that they could decompress and Caroline could sober up before going home, but Caroline felt like she couldn't be soberer. The image of Jeremy Gilbert holding Vicki Donovan's body in his arms, her complexion ashen like death, covered in her blood is seared into the back of her eyelids. Caroline denied Bonnie, realizing that Rebekah was going to be there soon and someone should tell her what happened.

And after what she saw, she wanted to talk to her friend. Bonnie seemed hesitant but agreed and left alone, after remarking if Caroline had seen where Stefan ran off to. Naturally, he took Elena home. Their friend confirmed it with a text message.

Once Rebekah and Klaus appeared, Caroline threw herself into her friend's arms and told her everything that happened to Vicki.

"Do you remember the day after we met? The waitress at the Grill? That's Vicki. She's Matt's older sister."

"I remember," Rebekah says, inspecting her closely. "Are you alright? Nothing hurt you?" Caroline shakes her head.

"No," she says, "I'm fine."

Klaus looks around the scene, greenish-blue eyes hard and focused as he looked around carefully through the throng of people. It takes Caroline a moment as Rebekah steers her  
toward their car. "He's gone, Klaus."

Klaus blinks, turning to look at her.

"What do you mean?" Rebekah asks as she opens up the back door for Caroline to get into. She does as the two siblings climb into the front seat. "Who's gone?"

"Stefan," Caroline says, rubbing at her forehead, tonight has left her feeling light-headed and weak. "He left before you showed up. He took my friend, Elena, home. I'm assuming that's who you're looking for." The two blond siblings share a look with one another. Both frowning a completely identical pouty frown. "I kinda get why you wanted me to stay away. He was weird," Caroline mumbles.

"How so?" Klaus asks, eyes narrowed and voice gravelly.

"He was asking about that day I spent the night? Asking me about the movies we watched, Rebekah, and then told me to forget about it and pretend we had a different conversation than we did." She shakes her head. "Not exactly danger signs, but definitely weird ones. Why would he say that?"

Klaus stares out the windshield for a moment, blinking very slowly, before looking over at Rebekah, who was staring back at him with her mouth hanging open slightly.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Rebekah asks softly.

Caroline looks between the two siblings confused. "What? What are you thinking?"

Neither looks at her as Klaus says, "Either Stefan is really losing his touch, or she resisted compulsion. And if it's the latter of the two, that can only mean one thing."

"Who did? What are you talking about?" Caroline asks, leaning forward between the two siblings. They both stare at each other for a moment longer before looking back at Caroline.


	8. Permission

Niklaus frowns at that, staring back at Lilah, shaking his head. "No. I can't possibly leave you alone. Not on a night like tonight."

"I am inclined to agree with Niklaus, Lilah," Elijah says, walking over to his brother. The two share a look that Lilah recognizes well. They are trying to decide how to convince her to do what they want.

Lilah laughs, shaking her head. "I will be fine, you two. Don't worry about me. As I said, I am not going to die tonight. And besides, I will be back before the moon rises to its apex. You both must honor your mother's will and return home. Werewolves do not scare me."

"Marvelous and fearless, you may be," Niklaus says, taking her hands, "but werewolves can take down entire grown men alone, but they will all be out and hunting. A pack is much more dangerous than a single wolf." He looks worried, eyebrows pulling together tightly. His grip on her hands is tight. She can see the wash of scenarios running through his mind washes horror across his face. Lilah shakes her head, not willing to budge and he looks over at his older brother, hoping that Elijah can convince her to let them take her home.

"Lilah," Elijah says, reaching up to push loose strands of brown hair out of his face, "I agree with Niklaus. No mortal man stands a chance against the power of a werewolf."

Lilah smiles at the brothers, pulling her hands from Niklaus's and placing them on the jaws of both brothers, looking between them as she says, confidently, "Then it does wonders for me to not be a mortal man." She pets Elijah's cheek, then kisses Niklaus's, smiling brighter at the flush across his pale cheeks. "You are so cute, Niklaus. Thank you for being gentlemanly and kind, but I am alright. No doubt your mother has ordered all her children and her husband back. If Mikael returns and you do not, I fear it will not end well."

"My father will understand," Niklaus says, grasping at her hand as pulls away from both of them. Lilah doesn't believe that for a second, and judging by the look that flickers across Elijah's face, he doesn't either. But there is a childish hope in Niklaus's eyes that maybe his father would understand. See the noteworthy and honorable act as something to praise and be proud of. And perhaps normally it would be, but Mikael's disdain for Niklaus will make such things impossible. No matter what it is, Niklaus will always be in the wrong.

Take pride in being a warrior, as his Viking ancestors demand it? Yet Mikael won't miss a chance to beat Niklaus for his failures or for his victory. Either Niklaus disgraces his family and blood by not winning a bout between him and his brothers, or he is showing off with his victory as if he has nothing to be proud of. His brothers aren't treated so cruelly.

Yet even still, Niklaus holds out this hope that his father will recognize him. Will see him for the great man that he is growing into. That Mikael will be able to get over whatever disappointments only Niklaus can drag from him. Everything is Niklaus's fault. Everything Niklaus does is wrong. And no one could ever be less than Niklaus in any measure of understanding.

Yet still, he holds on. He holds on to this hope that the bad days are nearing their end. That soon, his father will love and recognize him. And it breaks Lilah's heart beyond repair.

Lilah hates it. Hates that she feels she must because no one else seems to be able to. She reaches up, cupping Niklaus's face. "I dare not speak ill of the father to the sons, but I feel I must at least say something. Niklaus, please focus on yourself, as Mikael shows no interest in showing any form of leniency or fatherly love. Not to you, or any of your siblings, really, but especially you." She sees the sadness in his eyes and feels him sink into her hands, decompressing sadly. "Do nothing to stir his anger, Niklaus, and don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

***

"Rumor has it, though, that vervain has returned to Mystic Falls," Klaus mumbles, turning to face forward and start his car. Rebekah opens her mouth, thinks about it for a moment, before nodding and closing her mouth again. Klaus rubs at his forehead in thought, looking more and more agitated. They just about make it out of the cordoned-off area when someone steps out into the road. Klaus sighs. "Now what?"

"Nothing bad," Caroline says as she leans forward. "Go ahead and pull to a stop."

"Friend of yours?" Rebekah asks, casting her a curious look over her shoulder as Caroline leans between the seats.

Klaus slows down to a stop, eyebrows raised a bit. He casts a look at Caroline, absorbing her words before looking out his window and rolling it down. The officer walks up to the window.

She peers into the car as Caroline says, "Hey, mom. I was just leaving."

Liz Forbes stares at Klaus, curiously, then looking deeper into the car at Rebekah before turning her eyes toward Caroline. "I thought you left with Elena and that new boy earlier. Stefan Salvatore, was it?"

Caroline leans forward more to peer past Klaus at her mom. Her mind travels back to earlier in the evening, how Stefan just brushed off their conversation and pretended an entirely different one happened. He's very odd. She didn't get dangerous vibes from him, though. Just that one strange conversation was weird enough to give her pause. 

But Caroline isn't sure what to think of him. Not yet.

"Yeah, they left, but I wasn't with them," she says, then heard the words and laughs slightly, embarrassed, but the heaviness of the situation hasn't been lost on her, though.   
"I mean, obviously not." She waves her hand around. "But mom, I know now isn't really the time, but these are my friends, Rebekah and Klaus Mikaelson. The night I stayed out? I was at their house."

Liz nods slowly, curiously looking between the two siblings. "I see. Well, hopefully, your new friends will be more careful when it comes to this curfew." She hones in on Klaus being the older of the two. "I take that you are taking my daughter home now, Mr. Mikaelson."

Klaus's full red lips part a bit, considering something while studying Liz for a moment before nodding. "Of course, Missus..." he trails off, eyes lowering to her jacket for a moment before amends, pleasantly, "Pardon me. I mean Sheriff Forbes." He smiles. "I'll be taking Caroline home now."

Liz stares back at him for a moment before looking back at Caroline. "Text me when you get home, alright?"

Caroline salutes to Liz, making a face at her. "Sure thing, Sheriff." Then she catches herself as the thought crossed her mind. "Anything on the animal that attacked Vicki? Did they find it?"

Liz's eyes darken a bit and her lips press together tightly, same with her eyebrows. She forces a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "It's all being taken care of, alright honey? Don't worry about a thing. Go home and I'll be home late tonight." She hesitates, blue eyes looking out over the forest, a frown pulling at her lips before she looks back at Caroline. "Go home and don't let anyone into the home. No matter what." She looks at Klaus and Caroline. "The same goes for the two of you. Don't invite anyone into your home, you have no idea what kind of people are out there," she says sternly.

Caroline raises an eyebrow. "Uh, okay? Will do, I guess."

"Alright, go on home, now. All of you. Klaus, Rebekah, I hope we meet again soon but under better circumstances next time."

"Goodnight, Sheriff," Rebekah says softly, blinking large, beautiful blue eyes.

Klaus tips his head in farewell. "Good luck in your hunt tonight, Sheriff Forbes," he says, voice soft and airy.

Liz nods before leaning away to let them go before she stops and leans back in. "Caroline?"

"Mom?"

"Put your seat belt on," Liz orders, pinning her in place with a look. "And I mean it. Straight home."

Caroline nods, leaning back into the seat and putting the belt on. Liz gives her a knowing look that Caroline doesn't really understand but shrugs her shoulders at her mother anyway hoping that would satisfy whatever that look was implying. Thankfully, it was enough because Liz nods once more and spares the siblings a look before tapping on the car and waving them through the police cars.

They drive in silence for a few minutes. Caroline can't stop thinking about what happened earlier. All she can see is Vicki cradled in Jeremy's arms. The blood covering her neck and shoulder. Her face was as pale as the moon. He looked dead, but Caroline overheard one of the officers talking to another that she was alive still in the hospital. She's not sure how she is now, but she hopes that Vicki is going to be okay. They aren't friends, no, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't hope for the best for them.

Matt is a good guy. He shouldn't have to lose his sister. Not some wild animal. Not at some stupid party. And definitely not in the arms of Jeremy Gilbert. He's already lost so much, the last thing he needs is for someone to literally die in his arms.

Caroline digs out her phone and sends a quick message to both Elena and Matt, asking if they were okay. No doubt seeing Vicki like that has triggered similar things in both Gilbert siblings, but poor Matt has probably shut his phone off at this point with all the messages. She knows that they aren't very good friends, but she doesn't want   
anything to happen to him. Matt is such a nice guy that it hurts Caroline to think about him alone, in the hospital, waiting on news of his sister. Maybe Caroline will swing by before school tomorrow to see him.

Then again, maybe that's not a good idea and he wouldn't want people to crowd him.

Caroline rubs at her forehead, not sure what to do as Klaus says softly to Rebekah, "I suppose we now have an answer to our question as to how."

Rebekah let's out a long, drawn-out sigh, running her hand through her hair. While looking out the passenger side window, she mumbles, "I suppose you are right, Nik." She lets out another sigh. "This is only going to get harder."

Caroline wanted to ask. Well, she had a lot of questions, but she couldn't focus on anything other than Vicki`s face. She looks dead. She looked so dead. Caroline honestly can't believe that she wasn't. All she can do now is pray that Vicki will be okay. And that this freaking animal is found soon.

***

"He doesn't know me."

Caroline looks up from her honey barbecue wings, surprised that she heard Rebekah's soft, disbelieving voice over the din of the Grill around her. She chews the food in her mouth for a moment more before swallowing and asking, "Who?"

Rebekah rubs at her forehead. "He doesn't know me? How? After all that we've been through together? He just looked right through me..." she mumbles, eyebrows pulling together tightly. "I don't think that he even knows that I'm..." She reaches out, grabbing Caroline's drink and taking a sip. She casts a disinterested look to the wings before looking at Caroline. "What did you say?"

Caroline blinks, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't know. What are you talking about?"

"Stefan!" Rebekah says as if it was obvious. "I saw him and he didn't... it was like..." she waves her hand around, as if not able to find the words. She lets out an annoyed huff, throwing her hands up into the air. "I can't believe that man dare forget about me."

Caroline's eyebrow raises toward her hairline. "You know Stefan Salvatore?" Small world.

Rebekah sends Caroline a look. "I did. A long time ago, but it seems like he has forgotten about me." She looks genuinely sad and Caroline feels bad for starting to like him. "I suppose we have nothing really to worry about then, seeing as he's gone vegan." She rolls her eyes.

Yeah, that night of the back to school party was weird and out of the ordinary, but he wasn't a bad guy. He took Elena home, made sure that she was safe and has since befriended her. Elena seems to like him a lot. He's helping her smile again and after everything that's happened, Elena could do for some good juju in her life - so Caroline was willing to forget about one weird conversation.

Plus, with all the strangeness of the night, it was bound to get pushed into the back of the line of weird things to think about. Vicki ended up surviving - which is great! - but didn't remember really what attacked her. Caroline's mom, as well as the rest of the police force, remained vigilant in their search for the wild animals while everyone continued on with their daily lives. Matt continued to worry about Vicki and spent a lot of time looking after her, which is to be expected, but he did find time to thank Caroline for reaching out to make sure that they were alright and even stop in at the hospital the following day with breakfast to drop off for them - as Vicki was already awake at that point.

"I'm sorry," Caroline says, pulling back from her thoughts. "When did you meet Stefan?"

Rebekah shakes her head, glaring at the wings on Caroline's plate as if they were the ones that insulted her. "Nevermind. Obviously it doesn't matter. He's not the only one who can pretend the other doesn't exist." She blinks a few times before looking up at Caroline. "I know what I said, but listen, Caroline, stay away from Stefan. He might seem like a good guy, but he wasn't always like that. At least, not for good girls like you."

"He's friends with my friend Elena," Caroline says, eyebrows pulling together. "Should I be worried?"

Rebekah considers. She rubs the tips of her fingers together in actual thought. Caroline is starting to worry when Rebekah shakes her head. "No, I don't think you should be. I think everything should be okay. Just be cautious of the people around you. It doesn't matter if you think you know someone, they could flip a switch and forget all about you in the blink of an eye." And just like that, she sinks back into depression and Caroline figures - with a bit of hesitancy - that her worry is probably misplaced. But she'll keep an eye out.

"How about this?" Caroline wipes off her fingers and mouth before looking back at the darker blond. "How about you be my date tonight for the comet festival. I promise I won't forget about you." She smiles. She has no idea what Rebekah is talking about with Stefan, as she's not sure he's a vegetarian, but whatever. The darker blond tended to say some pretty weird things.

Rebekah's sad look melts away a bit and she smiles back at Caroline. "Alright. But just us. No brothers or boys or whatever. Just two girls enjoying the festivities. And we can gossip all we want and forget about stupid vegetarian Stefan Salvatore."

Caroline nods eagerly. "Sounds good to me. Although I have no idea what you mean about Stefan, I am all about spending a stress-free evening with you."

***

Caroline turns onto the dark road. She parted ways with Rebekah a little while ago and was finishing her walk home. It's dark but there was still a lot of people about, talking about the comet and the festival. Thankfully, whatever bad day that Rebekah was having seemed to have ended on a high note. They had a lot of fun tonight. Or, at least, Caroline did. She looks down at the stuffed bear that she spent like ten dollars trying to win. Okay, maybe fifteen, but she really wanted this bear. It's snowy white with a red bow-tie a big black eyes.

He's cute.

But now Caroline hates that she walked to the festival. Her body is still aching from kicking up the routine for cheer these last few days and she is feeling it. The backs of her legs ache a bit but mostly her back and arms. Maybe she landed wrong? She twists a bit, then stops to stretch as far as she could, hoping that would relieve some of the pressure. She presses her hands onto the tops of her feet, feeling the stretching in the back of her legs, which does both hurt and make her feel a bit better.

She straightens up and almost screams. She throws her hand over her chest, staring wide-eyed at the man in front of her. "Holy cow, you scared me."

He smiles, blue eyes practically glowing in the dim light. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

Caroline looks across the street to see some other festival-goers walking. They are laughing loudly that their voices are bouncing off the buildings around them. Caroline turns her eyes toward the man again, wondering if she had ever seen him before or not. Dark hair, pretty blue eyes, and a charming smile that absolutely slays. He's like every teenage girl's dream come true. At least most girls.

And he is very, very cute. But Caroline's more interested in another. One she knows she shouldn't be interested in but a pretty blond put it into her head and she's been trying hard to ignore it, favoring the Girl Code. It doesn't make matters any easier when he texted her out of the blue to let her know that he felt it was important that they stay in contact with each other. She didn't exactly fight him on it, nor does she ignore his messages when he sends them. That doesn't mean that she's not intimidated by this man's beauty too.

"It's okay," Caroline says, tucking a strand of blond hair behind her ear. "Can I... uh, help you?" She can't look into his pretty eyes.

"I was just worried about you," he says. "I was just walking with some friends and saw that you were doing... well, whatever it was that you were doing," he laughs easily, gesturing toward her and Caroline realized that she was still somewhat bent over to touch her toes. She snaps upright and could almost smack herself as her muscles protest at the action. She rolls her shoulders back, cracking them and her spine a bit.

"Oh, I'm okay." She flushes. "I was just..." she looks at the space around her head for a moment. "I was just stretching. Okay, I know it sounds lame, but that's what I was   
doing. Now it is time for me to go home." She shakes her head and starts to walk around him, stopping only to scoop up her big white bear, having laid him down on the sidewalk to stretch.

"Hey," he calls.

Caroline stops, turning at the hips to look back at the dark-haired young man. He opens his mouth, about to say something before another group of festival-goers happens past, making him close his mouth for a moment. He looks down at the dark pavement before shaking his head. "No, nevermind."

Caroline nods slowly. "Have a good night." She waves her hand over her shoulder and keeps walking toward her house.

"Goodnight!" He calls back.

Caroline shakes her head a bit, forcing away the heat that was built up in her cheeks. Then she realizes that this cute guy saw her being a fool and knew that she couldn't leave it like that. She laughs, turning around, "Oh, and can we not talk about me stretching like an idiot in the middle of the... street..?" She trails off, seeing the empty street behind her. She looks around, wondering how he managed to sprint away without her having heard him. She looks around, eyebrows pulling together tightly. "Uh..?"

She blinks a few times before shaking her head and turning around to keep walking home. Now that was strange. She wraps her arms around the bear, holding it to her chest as she walks the rest of the way home. She makes it to the next street over before a thought comes to her and she reaches into her pocket, pulling out her phone. She sends a quick text to Rebekah, Elena, and Bonnie, making sure that all of them got home safe. Bonnie texted back almost immediately, saying that she did. Rebekah was a few minutes later, saying she was almost there and Elena said she was a few minutes after that.

Caroline hesitates for a moment before hitting call on Elena's name and bringing the phone up to her ear. She hears the phone ring softly before Elena answers, "Caroline? What's up? I told you I was okay. Is something up?"

"Nothing," Caroline says, "I just wanted to make sure." She hesitates. "Did you end up having fun tonight? I didn't see you. You were at the festival, right?"

There is a pause. Elena says, "Yeah, yeah. I was there. I was there with Stefan. We... headed out a little early. Just a bit of family drama with Stefan... I'll tell you about it some other time."

Caroline recognized that tone. Something was bothering her but she definitely didn't sound threatened or in any sort of danger. She just sounded troubled, worried. But if something was really wrong, Caroline is sure that Elena would tell her. It's the same with anything. If something was really wrong, or any of them were in any sort of danger than Elena would be the first to say something. She takes safety even more seriously than Caroline does. She's doing everything she can to look after them.

Elena was always kind of like that though. She was more of the cautious, protective one. Always looking out for others. She lacked some degree of self-preservation, but that was what everyone else was for. It's why she and Matt were so good together. They both were very protective of others and some of the nicest people that Caroline has ever met. But it's clear to Caroline that Elena is starting to move on. And that's to Stefan Salvatore.

Caroline isn't sure what to think. Both Klaus and Rebekah seem wary of him, or at least advise staying away from him, but then Rebekah goes on this afternoon upset that he didn't remember her. And Caroline got the impression that they were more than just casual acquaintances. But she's not all that sure how anyone could forget Rebekah Mikaelson. She's a force to be reckoned with.

But anyway, they tell her to stay away, but then say that they - or specifically Rebekah - isn't worried about it. That Caroline shouldn't be worried about him being around her best friend.

And aside from that one conversation the night of the back to school party, Caroline hasn't had a bad conversation with him. He seems nice and genuine. His smile is soft and he looks adoringly after Elena as if she could do no wrong in the universe. He's helpful and smart and kind. Given, she's only known him for a few days and had only a handful of conversations with him, she hasn't really gotten a terrible vibe from him. She's just getting a lot of mixed signals from the Mikaelson radar she has attached to her forehead. They keep broadcasting in and scrambling her view on him with their words.

Their lack of consistency in it, though, is what is really throwing her off. But alas, no matter how she brings it up, they aren't really talking about the problem that they once had with him. At least now Caroline has a bit more of a clearer picture as to what it could have been. They knew him at one point and somehow he forgot about them. At least, in Rebekah's case.

Klaus was very whimsical in his responses when she texted him about it.

"Okay, sorry, Elena. Maybe I'm just worrying about nothing. I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Elena says. "I'll see you tomorrow. Love you."

"Love you too. Bye."

"Bye."

Caroline looks up to see her home as she turns off the screen to her phone after hanging up the call. She stuffs her phone back into her pocket before wrapping her arms around the bear and looking both ways before crossing the street, noting how her street was empty. She listens to the soft sound of her shoes against the pavement as she went from the street to the sidewalk, to her driveway and up to her house.

She digs around in her pocket to pull out her keys, squishing the bear under one arm and unlocks her door.

She stops, though, when she feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end and she freezes. She straightens up slowly, feeling her heart rate pick up in her chest. This feeling that she's never felt before washed over her. She feels like a little bunny, hiding in some bushes, hearing the snap of a twig and somehow, instinctively, knowing it was a fox. Her entire body seizes up as her brain jumps into flight response but her body stands in fight response. The two wage war against one another as her muscles tighten more and more.

And they hurt. They hurt because of the ache and because of the intensity in which they are being squeezed yet she can't move. No matter how much she knows she has to do something other than just stand there, her brain screaming, "Get into the house, you stupid bitch!" Her muscles still hold strong. And honestly, Caroline's surprised she can even hear her own thoughts with her blood roaring in her ears and her heart threatening to fly out of her chest and slam into the door in front of her at incredible speeds.

Slowly, agonizingly slow, Caroline forces her limbs to relax, despite the pain in her muscles. As her muscles loosen up, her sense of sound heightens, making her painfully aware of the silence of the night around her. There is absolutely no sound. No festival-goers making a ruckus. No cicadas. Not even any dogs barking for as far as her ears can hear. Nothing but absolute silence.

She's not sure how long she stood there, willing her muscles to relax enough for her to be able to move them when she does hear something. It's an unnatural whooshing sound that sends the warning bells off in her mind. Whatever it was, the source of her fear and the silence of the night was standing right behind her. So close, her brain can feel breath against the back of her neck.

And that little voice in the back of her head screams, "What kind of animal stands at almost 5'8 that isn't a bear?" She didn't even have time to remember if bears even live in the forest around Mystic Falls. Like it would do her any good if it was a freaking bear standing behind her as opposed to any other wild animal that it could have been.

Fear explodes through her veins once more, forcing her muscles to seize up more. Her brain finally wins the fight and her arms go flying toward the handle when she feels something wrap around each of her arms, spinning her around and slamming her hard against the door. She squeaks in fear and pain, dropping the bear as she feels hot breath blast against the back of her neck.

Her mouth drops open, about to scream when she's pulled from the door and spun around, forced to face the man that she just met earlier that night. And now, instead of bears, all Caroline can think about is getting murdered outside her own home. She just stares back into the pretty blue eyes of the man in front of her. A whimper of fear escapes her.

"What do you want..?" She squeaks. "Please let me go..."

He leans in close, breath washing across her cheeks and she shivers in fear. His lips press together tightly as he stares back into her eyes. He releases his hold on Caroline's arms and rests one up over her head and leans in close, sympathy and concern crosses his face.

"Sorry, Caroline," he says and Caroline doesn't remember ever telling him her name.

But the panic starts to rise in her body, making her shake. Despite the look on his face, she can also see the cold detached part that is settled underneath it all. He's not really sympathetic or concerned for her. It's all fake. He's not sorry at all.

Caroline feels the tears streaming down her cheeks as she shakes her head briskly, praying that someone would either walk out of their house and see them or walk by down the street and inquire as to what was going on. Or her mom would come home and scare him away. But she knows that Liz isn't going to be home for a few hours more at least. And that's assuming that she is even going to come home tonight at all.

"Please let me go," She whimpers. "I don't know anything. I can't do anything. Please leave me alone... please..."

The man shakes his head, lips pressed together tightly before looking through long dark lashes. "I doubt that, sweetheart. I'm going to need you to invite me in."

Caroline shakes her head too, tears blinding her as she hiccups. "No, please. I don't want to die. Please."

He caresses her face in mockery of love and she is too scared to turn her head away. "Caroline, everyone dies one day." She sobs, shaking harder. "But luckily for you, today isn't your day. I just need you to invite me in."

Caroline looks into his eyes, blinking rapidly so that the tears clear up a bit. "Are you going to kill me?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know yet, but for now, I need you to invite me in and I promise I won't kill you tonight." He smiles, leaning in closer to her. It's cold and calculating.

His pupils dance unnaturally, but Caroline is too scared to focus on it. She just needs to survive. She needs a find a way to get safely away from this stranger. Her mom, Liz, will be able to do something for her. Will be able to help her. It's weird that he has to be invited in, but if she can survive the night, then maybe she'll be okay. Maybe her name is all he knows. Surely he doesn't know that her mom is a cop, seeing as she could come home at any point tonight and he's still willing to risk it.

That, or he's just dumb.

Either way, hopefully, this is just to scare her and he'll go away soon enough. All she has to do is survive the night.

"Say it," he says softly, staring into her eyes. "Say, you can come in, Damon."

Terrified, Caroline whispers through a thick sob as tear spill out over her cheeks again, "You can come in, Damon."


	9. Planning

Lilah hated the sad look that flickered across Niklaus's face. She pulls away and steps back. "Go now, boys. Honor your mother's words and go home. Tomorrow morning you will see me again, the same as you always see me, helping the women prepare breakfast and all that." She waves her hands around dismissively. "Or... I will do as I always do and say that I will do such things and then do whatever else I want," she says, smiling. Lilah's heart melts at the sight of the boyish smile crossing over his lips.

"Do I have your word that you will be safe?" He asks.

Lilah nods. "Yes, Niklaus. You have my word." She waves her hands in a shoo shoo fashion. "Go now, boys."

"Are you certain we can't walk you home?" Elijah asks, blinking big, beautiful brown eyes. "Certainly whatever it is you plan to do can wait until tomorrow."

Lilah shakes her head. "Ah, no, I'm sorry, honorable Elijah, but I have to do it tonight. But thank you for your concern." She smiles at the older brother. "Please, go home. I'll see you both when the morning comes." A thought then occurs to her. "Actually, in the morning, we should all get together. Gather your siblings, and I'll bring my dear cousin Tatia. I have a fun idea for us once the men return from the hunt." Her eyes sparkle as an idea comes to her.

Niklaus and Elijah both share a look. 

"You have a plan for something?" Elijah asks, looking interested.

Lilah nods. "I've got some plans, but I can't divulge them now. I don't trust the two of you not to spoil the surprise. It is Rebekah's birthday tomorrow, isn't it?" Her grin widens. "Yes, we will definitely be doing something fun tomorrow."

"Rebekah will be most pleased to see that you've planned something for her birthday," Niklaus says, smiling back at her. Then, the smile starts to fade a bit. "Are you certain you have to do whatever it is you are doing tonight?"

Lilah points toward their village. "Go, sons of Mikael, so that I may finish my business and go home to get some sleep." She shoos them away again. After a moment of both brothers staring at her, both debating on if they would be able to convince her to let them walk her home before giving up. They bid her farewell, with worry in their eyes, and disappear into the forest to head home.

***

Caroline feels like she's in the twilight zone. She's confused beyond belief. She's starting to think that Damon is absolutely insane. And an absolute monster, to boot.

She feels that she has to premise this by saying that Liz didn't come home that night. She called and said that she had some work to finish at the station so she wasn't going to come home. And Caroline felt utterly helpless. She was so terrified that she did everything he asked. Which wasn't much. At first, he was rambling on about things that didn't make sense, and that was after making her promise not to repeat anything that she hears tonight - which gives her hope that she was going to survive to see tomorrow.

And then he told her about vampires. How he was a vampire. And then he drank her blood - a lot. And she was terrified the entire time, but the actor in her found this life or death situation as the perfect moment to show herself. It took a bit of time, but after a few hours of listening to him drone on and on about an ungrateful brother and a beautiful girl - a splitting image of Katherine, can you believe it? - and a lot of drinking her blood.

He didn't seem to mind her pounding heart so long as she was quiet when he wanted her to be or asking questions when he wanted her to.

Thankfully, Damon seemed far more interested in having someone to bounce noise off of that would occasionally make noise back at him every once and a while. So she just stayed quiet and listened to him drone on.

Caroline was so tense, so riled, that she stayed up all night listening to him talk. That man could talk about anything and eventually tired himself out. Then this psycho crazy slept in her bed next to her, while she stared out the window, watching the sun come up. Her mind is racing as she listens to his stories, listens as he explains about vampires - compulsion, timeless, speed, strength, power, bloodlust - as it whirls around in her head.

If she didn't spend the entire night with him, as he drank her blood, she wasn't sure she would have believed any of this insanity. She looks down at her right forearm to see the bite marks along it. They don't bleed anymore, but within the holes, there are red scabs forming inside. Some sort of aftereffect from the bloodletting, if she had to guess. The skin around it is purpling too.

Caroline is so tired from staying up all night and from losing all that blood. Just thinking about the blood in her body is settling in the stomach of the man lying next to her. She's terrified. So much so that she feels paralyzed. She stares at the rising sun, feeling this pulsing across her entire body and head. Once Damon fell asleep, her whirling brain while trying to figure out how to organize everything that she's learned last night.

The fear began to simmer down the more time Damon slept next to her. She began to think past the fear in her brain and really thinking about what she's learned. Vampires exist. And they are everywhere. They look like regular people, except for when they are hungry. The sight of blood makes these strange veins in their eyes appear, darken their sclera black and make the color of their irises stand out. That, and well, fangs push out of their gums.

Damon said something about the nifty little ring on his finger kept him safe in the daylight, so other vampires without a ring like the one Damon has must be bound to travel only at night.

He said something about the girl that he loved, another vampire named Katherine, was killed in a fire, so fire kills them. Hopefully, there's a grain of truth in the fairytales that a wooden stake will do the trick too. Age also has something to do about strength with vampires, but she's not exactly sure to what end, but it's safe to assume the older the vampire the stronger they are. Or it could be going the Twilight route and as soon as they turn they are at their most powerful. Now she has no idea what to think. She's seen too many vampire movies that now she doesn't even know what to think.

Okay, back to what she knows.

Vampires can sleep. Or, at least Damon can fake it well. And for some unexplainable reason, compulsion isn't working on her. But for now, it seems like Damon hasn't realized that it isn't working on her. Which means it's not normal that she isn't outwardly obeying him. Compulsion sounds like it shouldn't be a choice, but Caroline has been careful to obey his wishes.

Once more, thankfully, Damon seems to be confident in his compulsion abilities and hasn't second-guessed her for obeying his commands. Which will serve her just fine. If he's not willing to overanalyze what she's doing, she might just make it out of this alive.

A serial killer is one thing, but a vampire is something entirely different. Not that she has any more experience with serial killers than she does vampires, but she's got to hope that she can do something.

Slowly, carefully, Caroline moves to sit up, feeling weak and tired. She just barely swung her feet toward the ground when Damon's voice stops her. "And where do you think you're going?"

"School," Caroline says softly, keeping her back facing the vampire. "I still have to go."

"Not today," Damon says. "Lay back down."

Fear grips at Caroline's heart, but she obeys, laying down slowly. She keeps her back to Damon and forces herself to calm down. She pulls the blankets up over her body. It's not a lot, but it makes her feel like it's a shield from Damon as opposed to just fabric. She's lost so much blood, and she's tired, and her head is still spinning despite being able to form a few coherent thoughts.

If she's going to keep herself safe from Damon and whatever it is that he wants from her, she's going to need her strength. So she stares at the rising sun filtering in through her window until her eyelids grow so heavy, they droop closed.

***

Damon fed on her some more, but at some point, he was willing to let her go to cheer practice, which was odd, but she agreed, anything to get out of the house and away from him. He warned her in no uncertain terms what would happen to her mom, to her friends, if she was to say anything to anyone about who he was, what he was, and that he threatened her to begin with.

He wasn't done with her, but at least her friends and her mother were safe for the moment. And she can plan out her next move.

So Caroline complied. She let him drink her blood, wrap a scarf around her neck to hide some of the bite marks before he ushered her into his car and drove her to her cheer practice. Once they got there, he cups her chin, staring into her eyes with dancing irises, reminding her not to forget that her lips must be sealed about their arrangement and that he was going to pick her up after practice.

Caroline forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes, nodded like a good little puppet and agreed to do as he said, hoping that it was normal compulsion behavior. Damon has yet to correct her, so either it isn't off enough for him to care, or she's acting it out just fine.

Elena was distracted by Damon, asking why Caroline was with him, but Caroline didn't have an answer for her. She wasn't going to break the promise she made to Damon, because she also made it to herself. She was going to keep her friends, and her mother safe. She would say nothing and figure out a way to stop Damon from being able to hurt those that she loves. She's still not sure what he was after and why, but she wasn't going to let anyone ruin it. She wasn't going to let her friends intervene and get into trouble.

So she lied. She lied in the only way she knew would be believable. "He's so pretty, isn't he?" Caroline asks rhetorically, hardly able to ignore the bile that sprung up in her throat at her own words. "I met him last night, but we just have a connection, you know?"

"I don't think you should be hanging around with Damon Salvatore," Elena says wearily.

Caroline blinks, feeling the September heat beat down on her, worried. Salvatore? Like Stefan? She thinks about the night of the back to school party. The way his irises danced.

There is a moment, where Caroline's mind goes back in time to a day or so ago. To when she noted the large, gaudy ring on Stefan's finger, reminiscent to the one on Damon's.

Caroline looks away from her friend to the football field as Stefan easily dominates it. Every move calculated. Every catch, every pass, every tackle. She wasn't sure if what she was assuming to be correct, but now she was watching for certain. She wasn't sure if she should be wary of him before or not, but if he is anything like Damon, she would stop him too.

***

Damon is... preoccupied, to say the least. She's been careful, watching him these last few weeks. His prattling and droning continued on. Caroline isn't sure who Katherine is - other than for the fact that Damon is hopefully obsessed with her and that she died a long time ago - but she holds some form of physical similarity to Elena that makes her safe. Damon seems to be enamored with Elena for her similarity to this Katherine no matter how loosely. But according to Damon, the similarities are astounding. 

Apparently.

He brought her over to Elena's house with Stefan, who didn't seem happy to see him. Bonnie was happy to see her, and honestly, for a moment, Caroline was happy to be away from Damon and be with her girls. She was able to spend time with Rebekah at school but hasn't been able to spend time with her outside of school, despite her many requests.

Caroline had to dodge both her and Klaus when they both came. She feigned not feeling well and was able to dodge out on them, feeling terrible about it, but she told them she loved them and would make it up to them. And she meant it, she would, once she figured out how to get rid of Damon Salvatore.

Caroline watched as Elena and Stefan grew closer and started dating. Stefan was nothing but kind to her and even seemed genuinely worried about her. He not so subtly advised her to stay away from Damon, that it wasn't a good idea for her to be around him. A part of her wondered if maybe Stefan meant it. If he wanted to be an actual friend to her because he knows what his brother is and he wanted to keep her safe for the sake of their budding friendship.

But when she looked into his eyes and asked, "Why do I need to stay away from Damon?"

"He's just not a good fit for someone like you," Stefan said and left it at that.

He may not be like Damon, but he wasn't willing, to be honest, and really do anything to stop him. Either Stefan doesn't know what Damon is doing to her, or he is just warning her to stay away without actually doing anything. Caroline doesn't need him to save her, but she wished that if he was serious about stopping his brother, that he would be honest or at least do something. But... she supposed not.

Stefan seems nice and Elena seems to really like him, so she's willing to think that maybe, just maybe he wasn't that bad. Then she thought about compulsion and how Stefan could have been using it on Elena when she overheard Damon grumbling about the necklace around Elena's neck. Something about it made her immune to compulsion. Caroline's not sure what it is about the necklace that makes her resistant, but apparently, she is.

So long as Elena is in her right mind, then Caroline will let it be. Caroline doesn't see any strange, unexplainable marks on Elena so it seems like Stefan isn't feeding on her.

After that, the animal attacks came to an abrupt end. The mountain lion was finally caught and killed, which was a relief to be sure. So many people were killed by the mountain lion that now that it is finally down, they can rest a bit easier. And the night ban has finally been lifted. Not that Caroline can much enjoy the nightlife with her friends seeing as Damon is basically keeping her prisoner in her own home whenever her mom isn't around. Any time that she's out, she's out with him and she's had to find more and more creative ways of telling Rebekah that they can't meet up.

He knows about Elena and Bonnie. But he doesn't know about Rebekah. She couldn't let him know about her too.

That night, something unexplainable happened. Caroline learned that sleeping vampires exude their magical energy. She was laying next to Damon after he finally shut up about whatever it was that pissed him off that day, staring at him, wishing that he would just go away. That he would lose all interest in her and whatever it was that he was after and go away.

At some point, his arm slung over her waist in his sleep. She waits for him to settle back into slumber again before reaching over and grabbing onto his wrist slowly to pull it off of him. In her mind's eye, she imagined all the ways he would disappear. Fadeaway into a forest or slide down a drain or something. Somehow he would peacefully, just disappear one way or another. Despite all the blood he drank from her, she didn't necessarily hate him. She can forgive someone wronging her because he's kept his word in not hurting those that she loved.

She won't let him hurt those she loved. Just because she doesn't really want him dead for drinking her blood, she just wanted him to leave her and her friends alone. Her mom.

But she felt something in her hand wrapped around his wrist. Her hand started to glow lightly in the darkness and she felt this feeling cross into her palm and body, warming her up. It wasn't a lot at first. Just a tingling sensation that made her feel stronger. She stared at her hand for the rest of the night, trying to figure out what exactly happened.

She did it again the next night and her hand glowed again. And again the next night. That same feeling kept washing over her, more and more. But it also made him hungrier. It has to be doing something to him, like sapping his energy, which is interesting. It seems like an overall design flaw for his energy to just flow right out of him at night just from touch alone.

Each time, though, she held on for longer, feeling more and more energy flow into her, but she would always let go when he starts shifting. She just turns her back to him, staring at her hands, watching as small twinkles of light flitter through her fingers before closing her hand and holding it close to her chest. She wasn't sure what all of this meant but it was making her feel better to be able to do it.

It's been weeks since she had last seen Klaus so while she was finally alone dress shopping for the Founder's Ball being held at the Lockwood mansion, she was surprised to step out of the dressing room in the dress she was checking out to see if she was going to like it when someone steps up next to her to join her in admiring the outfit in the full body mirror.

"Klaus," Caroline says, eyes widening. She spins around, wrapping her arms around herself, glad that she decided to be super modest because of the bite marks littering her back, shoulders, neck, and arms. Her heart was pounding in her chest but the sight of her friend after so long being denied really seeing anyone away from Damon made her practically fall into his arms in relief. "Oh my god, how are you?"

For the slowest, most wonderful moment, Caroline finally felt okay. She's been so utterly terrified that it's somehow become normal the last few weeks. She sinks into his arms as they wrap around her. Caroline's happy that her face was buried into his shoulder so that he wouldn't be able to see the tears welling up in her eyes. The last time she saw him it was in passing as she was running away from Rebekah's puppy-dog eyes that she knew would work on her. Caroline felt like the worst friend in the world for avoiding her friends, but she hoped that by putting some degree of distance between them that it would help keep them safe.

Thankfully, Elena has been distracted by Stefan and whatever it is that's going on in their little section of the galaxy and Bonnie has been distant. There is something going on with her but every time that Caroline asked her, she just shrugged and said she had a lot on her mind. When asked to elaborate, Bonnie came up with some excuse and left her. She definitely looked bothered but she didn't want to talk to Caroline about it, which she sort of understood because she was keeping her own secrets. But it still hurt.

And she has no room to be upset or mad about it, so she won't.

"Hello, love," Klaus's wonderfully accented voice says in her ear. "I thought you were avoiding us. I can't say I'm disappointed by the warm reception."

Caroline lets out a little sigh, pulling back reluctantly after having wiped the tears clear from her eyes and offers him the first genuine smile, no matter how small, in a long time. His hands settle on her ribs while her hands rested on his upper arms. She looked him in the eye and with all the sincerity in the world, says, "You have no idea how much I have missed you guys."

Klaus half-smiles at her. "Truly? Because Rebekah has been bemoaning her fears that you were intentionally avoiding her."

And Caroline feels like a terrible friend all over again. Truly, it is a situation of her own making, but she's scared. How can anyone face off against someone like Damon? She has no idea what she's even going to do against him but it seems like the death grip he originally had over her has since loosened up and it started to vanish bit by bit. Surprisingly, it seems like this problem might just solve itself.

But she's not going to let herself hope just yet.

"I'm really sorry," Caroline says, finally pulling away completely. "I don't mean to be distant. Something has come up that I have to deal with and it's just easier knowing I can just focus on that." She looks down at her green dress, thanking all the hideous lace up and down her arms and back for hiding Damon's bite marks, which has thankfully lessened as his attention has been directed elsewhere.

Thankfully she's kept in touch over text messages, but she really does miss her friend.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Klaus asks, finally looking down at her dress. His eyebrows raised toward his hairline as he looks back up at her. "Is this another, what was it? Fashion faux pas?" He smiles playfully and the levity of it relaxes her more.

"Yes," Caroline admits, absolutely hating the dress. "It looks like someone threw up over a rejected wedding dress."

Klaus's facial expression remains the same, but he blinks slowly, absorbing that imagery into his brain. He takes a second to really let it sink in before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes, well, be that as it may, certainly there is something in this town that will truly accent your beauty." He looks her up and down. "And I promise you, love, there is no saving this dress from its fate."

Caroline laughs, shaking her head. "I know. I've got some more to try on."

She heads back into the changing room as Klaus waits in one of the nearby seats, inviting himself to be the witness to her dress of choice.

"Is it safe to assume that you aren't planning a wonderfully beautiful reunion with my sister in these dresses?" Klaus asks flippantly as Caroline strips the green monstrosity off of herself taking a moment to see where the bite marks are on her body. One on her inner wrist, two on her neck, and one on her shoulder. Thankfully Damon has a preference.

Caroline rolls her eyes. "Hardly. I'm trying to find a dress for the Founder's Ball to celebrate the founding of Mystic Falls."

"Ah yes, I remember hearing about that." Caroline pulls on another dress, a gentle pink one that is much simpler and will be able to hide all of the bite marks if she keeps her hair down or wears a scarf or something.

Caroline walks out, being careful not to move her head a lot to keep her hair in place. "Okay, so I love this one."

Klaus admires her with a soft look on his face. "You are beautiful, Caroline. I much fancy this one more than the other."

Caroline rolls her eyes again, playfully. "I'm glad I got the Klaus Mikaelson approval."

"It is essential to any successful night out," Klaus says flippantly, grinning when a laugh escaped her. Caroline missed him. She missed Elijah. But she really, really missed Rebekah. It was nice to be able to see her at school, but it wasn't the same. She wanted to spend time with her friend. Not right before school or before Damon picks her up from Cheer or between classes. To go do something and spend time with her friend.

Same with Elena and Bonnie.

"I think I'll get this one," Caroline decides, smiling down at the dress. "And even though you just got here and didn't do anything, thank you, Klaus."

Klaus smiles broadly, eyebrows quirked. "You are most welcome, love." A moment of hesitation before he says, softly, "And because I assisted in helping with you with your endeavor, does that mean I'm given the pleasure of escorting you to the Founder's Ball?" His pretty blue eyes stare into her own.

And it breaks her heart to see the vulnerability in his eyes. Honest and soft. And she wanted to say yes because Klaus was her friend and she loved and missed him, but she knew that she couldn't.

"I would love to," Caroline says, "but I can't. I actually already have a date." And those words tasted sour in her mouth. No doubt Damon would abandon her right from the start and only rejoin her at the end, which would be fine with her if he hadn't insisted that she couldn't go with anyone else. He was to be her date and so now she had to turn down her friend, who would probably have actually spent the entire party with her.

And the look on Klaus's face killed her. He blinks slowly, smile and eyebrows falling flat. His pale lips press into a thin line for a moment as he thinks about her words before asking, evenly, "Is that so? And who is this fine gentleman escorting you?" Maybe it was just her but there was a dark glint in his eye.

"His name is Damon," Caroline says. She wouldn't call him a fine gentleman in any sense of the definition. And she wasn't certain that he was going to spend a lot of time with her. And she would much rather spend her time with Klaus.

He looks around the room, a dark look on his face, as he thinks about her words. His lips keep moving slightly like he's saying something in his mind so strongly that his lips are moving with his thoughts. It's not a great look. It's kind of scary. She's not sure, after what she saw with Damon if she can be scared by anything anymore.

"Although..." Caroline says softly, not missing the protective glint in his blue eyes or the way he stares at her hands like he wants to reach out and grab hold of her and not let her go. His pretty blue eyes find her own when she speaks. "If you have a nice suit that needs to breathe for a few hours and happen to have absolutely nothing to do tomorrow night..." Caroline says slowly, watching as a smile starts to work its way across his face. "I suppose I could... save you a dance..."

Klaus looks absolutely beautiful when that sweet smile crosses his lips. "I do believe that tomorrow will be a droll night at the Mikaelson home and I have a suit that needs to... breathe."

Caroline couldn't help it. She wanted so badly to get back to the life she had the day before she met Damon Salvatore. She wraps her arms around Klaus, hugging him tightly. For now, at this moment, while in Klaus's arms, she's safe from vampires and magic and anything else in this terrifyingly scary world. She didn't know how all of these scary things could have been going on around her without her noticing, but it has to of been. Damon and Stefan Salvatore can't be the first vampires to ever exist.

Things really do continue on outside of Mystic Falls. Scary things.

Caroline pulls back, smiling softly to the blond in front of her. "I'm going to change." She turns and walks back into the room to change. Once she's back in her own clothes, putting the dresses back on their hangers, she grabs her one of choice and leaves the room. Not surprised that Klaus was waiting for her. She pays for her dress and he walks her to her car.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Klaus says, smiling softly.

For once in a long couple of weeks, Caroline is excited. She nods. "I'll see you tomorrow. Give Elijah and Rebekah my love, okay?"

"Will do. Founder's Ball, last dance."

Caroline salutes. "Sure thing, boss. I'll see you then." She climbs into her car, waves at him one more time, before driving home. Hoping that Damon doesn't come over tonight so that she can keep riding the excitement of seeing her friend again tomorrow.


	10. Trust

Lilah waits until she can no longer hear their retreating footsteps. No matter how many times they stopped, turned around to come back, before heading back once more. She listened until they were completely gone before turning and looking around the forest. She takes a moment to really listening to the life in the forest as the sky starts to turn into a blast of starbursts in reds, oranges, and yellows. Like it was on fire.

Lilah turns away from the village completely and heads off to a special spot in the forest. She can feel it like an imprint across time. She can see the circles of fire burned into the ground. She can hear the screams of the occupants. And she sees her. Those beautiful brown eyes staring back at her but not seeing her. It hurt her heart but she knew that she couldn't help them. But she might be able to help others.

The girl that wore the face of beloved Tatiana. Elena Gilbert. And the story of how she lost everything plays before Lilah in this place. Where magic links the two times together. She watches as the moon starts to rise into the sky as Niklaus sacrifices a werewolf, and a vampire, and becomes a hybrid. This image only reveals itself on the full moon. Where it was both created and destroyed.

Lilah pulls out all of her tools, placing out everything in the specific spots she needed them, praying that tonight would finally be the night that she was able to perform the spell that she has been concocting for the better part of a year. She pulls out the final piece, a large blue sapphire, clutching it between her hands she watches as the image starts to reenact the breaking of the curse placed on Niklaus.

Tonight was going to be the night. She was going to do it. She'll draw from the moon, the earth, the spirits, her own power, and anything and everything she has to, to draw in enough power to break the curse on him. Tonight was the night.

***

Caroline woke up with her head spinning. She sits up slowly in the grass, looking around with wide eyes, a glint in the grass caught her attention. She pulls the antique iron necklace from the grass to see the amber crystal casting a faint light. She holds it up, staring into it before the events of the night came rushing back to her. Damon tried to kill her. He tried to drink her blood. She... passed out. He drank so much of her blood that she felt light-headed, even now. And that was only after Elena saw the bite marks on her.

Caroline knew that she shouldn't have come. She knew that she should have worn that ugly green monstrosity of a dress because there was no way that wasn't going to easily hide everything. But Caroline panicked, she didn't want Damon to hurt Elena for knowing about them. She just wanted her best friend to be safe. So she lied. She hated lying. Especially to Elena because Elena deserves better than that. Trust is a huge thing for Elena and without trust, there isn't a real friendship.

But she had to lie. Because she was scared of the alternative.

Or she was, but now she's alone. Damon didn't kill her - and she has no idea why. She's not sure how long she's been out, probably a half-hour or so, but it doesn't feel long enough, honestly.

Her eyes scan the area once more, still not seeing Damon but fear clenches at her throat. What if he was still out there? What if he realized he didn't kill her and he comes back to finish the job. She knew she would have to eventually defend herself against him, but she wasn't ready yet. She wasn't strong enough to face someone like Damon. She still needed time. Which meant she had to get out of here before he realized his mistake and came back for her.

Caroline quickly gathers up her purse, in her fear, she had dropped it, spilling all of the contents all over the grass. As she hastily gathers it all together, her phone lights up, Klaus's name appearing on the screen.

Terrified, Caroline stares at it as it continues to ring as if Damon would sense it and come running back to her. Once it stops, the phone reveals that she had three missed calls. All from Klaus. This one makes four.

A new voice mail appears. She picks up her phone slowly, pressing the button for the voice mail and listens.

"Caroline, I've looked all over for you. I don't care if you've stood me up, just let me know that you're somewhere safe," Klaus says. His voice is laced with a protective anger he usually reserves for Rebekah. Or so she thought. There was a long pause that she thought that the message was over and just as she was about to pull the phone away from her ear, ashamed that she wouldn't be able to see him after such a long absence, she hears him say, softly, "I'm worried about you. Please call me back."

Caroline presses the recall button without thinking. The phone only rings once - just long enough for her to realize that she probably shouldn't be wasting time like this when she should be running for the hills - and Klaus answers.

"Caroline? Heaven's sake! Are you alright?"

"Yes," she wanted to say. The lie coming easily to her. "Yes, I'm fine. I'm just not feeling well. So I've gone home for the night." But she couldn't. The concern in his voice, the swiftness in which he answered. He was worried about her. He just wanted her to be okay and Caroline thinks about yesterday. How safe she felt in his arms and how terribly unsafe she felt right at this moment.

"Caroline?" Klaus calls out slowly, a dangerous lilt to his voice. "Is that you?"

"Klaus..." Caroline rasps, her throat squeezing tight. "I... I am so sorry. I... I didn't mean to stand you up." Tears trickle down her cheeks as she reaches up, touching the puncture wounds on her neck, pulling back to see blood. "Klaus... I... I..."

"What's wrong?" Klaus asks, his voice softening. "Tell me where you are, love, and I will come for you."

"I..." Caroline rasps. "I..."

"Tell me," Klaus says softly. The tenderness of his voice is breaking her heart. "Tell me so that I can come to make sure you're safe."

That was what she needed. She needed more than anything else in the world than to feel safe. She felt like all of her life and energy were being sucked away and it was a terrible feeling. Slowly, but surely, Damon wasn't just draining her of her blood, but of her life. He was breaking her in ways she wasn't sure she would ever heal from. Or forgive him for. And at that moment, she wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate Damon with every fiber of her being, but she couldn't.

She couldn't because she wanted to feel safe more than even that.

So, with a shaking breath, she tells him where to find her, and follows with, "Please, Klaus... I'm... I'm so scared..."

And admitting to that hurt because she hated feeling like it. But she also promised that this would be her lowest point. She would do everything in her power to never feel like this again.

Caroline looks up as Klaus walks around the bushes. He looks handsome in his nice suit, and Caroline hates that she didn't get the dance that she wanted, but she is beyond relieved that he was here. Caroline feels tears sliding down her cheeks as she finally manages to find strength in her legs to stand up and run into Klaus's arms. All the pain and fear of the last couple of weeks has left her feeling incredibly vulnerable and upset. She fell into his arms and cried so hard that her head hurt even more.

Klaus jerks back, making Caroline sob harder, not wanting him to go, but he lifts his hand up to look at the blood there, turning blue eyes toward her neck and chest. The blood had long since created a huge red stain down the front of her dress.

Caroline looks down at her dress, forgetting about Damon's bite. A look crosses his face and she thought for sure he was going to be terrified and run away at full speed, but his expression darkens and he leans forward, pressing his hand against the wound. She hisses, jerking back a bit, but Klaus grabs onto her, wrapping his hand around her neck.

Panic begins to build up in her chest when Klaus leans in close, whispering, "Don't move, Caroline. We have to stop the bleeding now." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief and presses it against the wound, staring into her eyes. "Hold that there."

Caroline nods. He covers her wound and presses her hand against it. He helps her apply pressure before pulling away and grabbing out his phone, messaging someone before leaning down and grabbing her purse, throwing the last of her stuff into it before grabbing her arm and leading her toward the front of the house and to his car, helping her into the passenger seat before walking around and climbing into the front and starting it up.

"Keep your eyes open, don't fall asleep," Klaus orders, his voice a low rumble as he glares out the windshield, leaving the party like a madman.

"No hospital..." Caroline wheezes. Her mom can't know. No one can know. "No hospital..."

"I'm not taking you to the hospital, Caroline. I'm taking you to my house."

Caroline forces herself to sit with her back ramrod straight. She can't fall asleep. She knows that if she's losing so much blood and she falls asleep she'll probably never wake up again. Thankfully, the Mikaelson mansion is nice and close to the Lockwood mansion. As soon as they pull into the long driveway, Elijah is standing in the doorway to their house waiting for them. He comes down toward the car and helps her out of it.

They lead her into the house and into the kitchen where Rebekah is standing by the kitchen table on the other side of the room, a frown on her pretty face. As soon as Caroline steps into the room, Rebekah is walking toward her with a black towel.

"Rebekah..?"

"Arms up, let me tuck this under your arms," Rebekah says. Caroline holds up one arm and lifts the other at the elbow so that she can keep the pressure on her neck to try and keep the blood in her body. Rebekah kneels down at Caroline's feet, showing that the towel was shaped more like a dress so that it wouldn't fall off. Caroline steps into it and Rebekah quickly works it up her body and once it's under her arms, Rebekah steps away to grab scissors and proceeds to literally cut the dress off of her shoulders, then pulls it out from under the towel, tossing it away like it was trash - which it kind of was at this point.

"Rebekah..?" Caroline says softly.

The Mikaelson sister gives her a look. "I was a nurse for a short time," she says, shrugging.

"You were?" Caroline asks, forcing her mind to focus on something other than the fear that Damon would still be able to find her, even here. "Aren't you still in high school?"

Rebekah's eyebrows quirk and she looks over at her brothers from over Caroline's shoulder. "I can't do this anymore. We'll figure it all out later," Rebekah says.

"Rebekah," Elijah says warningly.

Rebekah turns her blue eyes toward Caroline's and the other blood watches as blackened veins work their way up to her eyes, darkening her sclera and making the blue of her eyes pop out. Caroline recoils, eyes widening in fear when Rebekah brings her hand up to her mouth, opening it wide to reveal sharp fangs, remotely similar to Damon's, and then bit into her hand and brought it to Caroline's mouth.

First, there was panic. Her brain tells her that she was in danger because she's seen eyes like that before in Damon - meaning that Rebekah is like Damon. Or, at least, she's a vampire. And it also tells her that she's in danger because the last time she saw eyes like that it was Damon sucking the life right out of her, for what she's sure he assumed to be the last time.

Whether it was an unconscious reaction to the fear building up in her, or her brain knew she had to do something, her throat seized closed, making Rebekah's blood just fill up her mouth.

"Caroline," Rebekah says, her eyes returning to normal as she watches some of her blood slide down Caroline's chin, "we aren't going to hurt you. I promise. My blood will heal your wounds."

Caroline stares into her friend's eyes, wondering if she could trust that. Rebekah was like Damon.

No. No. Rebekah wasn't like Damon. Damon was mean and cruel and hateful. Rebekah... Rebekah was lovely and kind and wonderful. And... all along, she's been trying to warn Caroline about Damon. Well, probably not Damon specifically. But those like her. Like Damon. Those that she knew would be out there in the world threatening to hurt and kill people. Since the moment she met them, Rebekah has been warning her about the things that go bump in the night. She's been warning her about vampires.

"You're scared," Elijah says softly, stepping up to her side and looking down at her with kind brown eyes. "It's okay to be scared, Caroline. But know that you have nothing to fear from us."

Us. He said, 'us'. Which means... Klaus and Elijah too. And probably their brother Kol.

"We have much to talk about, Caroline," Klaus says, stepping around her so that he can cup her face as Rebekah steps away. "Swallow Rebekah's blood and heal so that we can talk without fear of you passing out..." he dips his head a bit, staring at her through long lashes, "or dying."

The fear of death is good enough for her as she forces herself to swallow the blood while trying not to think that of what it is, shaking a bit as the metallic taste remains. Klaus pulls away, letting Rebekah step forward and grab onto her arm, leading her to the mirror in the hall and running her hand across her neck a bit to push away the blood so Caroline could see that the hole was closed up.

"It's gone..." Caroline whispers, blue eyes wide. Honestly, she couldn't believe it. Well, she could, because ever since meeting Damon her threshold of disbelief has shrunk significantly. Even the short amount of time that she's been wearing that towel, just running her fingers across the front of it, she can see that she was bleeding badly. The dress, and now this towel was both ruined.

And Caroline..? Well, she drags her eyes up to her face and sees how horribly pale she is, the blackened mark from where Damon bit her and Rebekah wiped the blood away started to lighten up as Rebekah's blood did as they said and healed her. She has dark circles under her eyes and she looks worn out and tired. Honestly, she looks terrible.

"Why don't you come to my room and take a shower?" Rebekah says softly, helping Caroline turn away from the mirror and the horrible image that it shows. "I'll help you change into some new clothes."

Caroline looks at her friend, trying to muster up the same fear for Rebekah as she had for Damon. Damon was a scary monster that was easy to fear, but all Caroline could see is Rebekah. She loved Rebekah.

"He tried to kill me," Caroline says softly. "He said he was done with me. I think it was a mistake. I don't think he intended to leave me alive."

Rebekah frowns while Klaus, leaning against the wall behind her was now glaring hard enough to set fire to something with his gaze alone. "Who was that bastard?" Rebekah asks. "I'll tear his bloody throat out for hurting you."

It was dark, yet such a protective Rebekah thing to say that Caroline couldn't help the bit of relief at knowing that her friend was there brought to her. She knew that she should be afraid of them like she was Damon. But she loved them. Since the moment she met them they have been nothing but nice to her all the time.

"You guys are vampires," Caroline says softly, looking between the brothers and sister. Elijah is wiping the blood he had on his hand off onto a white handkerchief. "He said that humans are food. That I was food."

"He's right," Klaus says, pushing away from the wall and walking over to Caroline. Rebekah shoots him a look but steps out of the way. "Humans are food. They are our food. But not you. You are our family." He cups her neck and jaw, lifting her face so that her eyes meet his, not minding her blood smearing all over his hands. "And we protect our family. This... Damon will pay dearly for hurting you. I give you my word, Caroline, you will have nothing to fear from him again."

"Why would you kill one of your own?" Caroline asks softly, never able to talk to Damon like this. She could sometimes squeeze an innocent question in there but never much. "Aren't you all vampires?"

"Damon isn't one of our own," Rebekah snaps, her pretty face twisting in anger. "This Damon, who I'm assuming is the one who hurt you, will never be one of ours. You are, my dear."

"Do you mean it?" Caroline asks, feeling vulnerable. She hates this feeling so much. She wishes that it didn't have to be like this. That she could somehow be stronger.  
But... she could.

Her friends. Her family. Her love for them. That made her stronger. She remembers how weak she felt this whole time, how scared she was for Damon to find out she wasn't under his control. How she felt in those quiet, dark moments when she thought that the only way to take away his control over her was to end her life. How fast all of those feelings went away when she realized that she didn't want to die. She didn't want her friends and family to live on without her. She knew that no one would ever love and cherish them as much as she did and she would do anything to keep them safe. She trusted that with her own strength, and love for them, that she would do everything she could to keep them safe.

And those moments of realization made her strong.

She didn't want to die, nor did she want to give Damon the satisfaction of pushing her into that corner. She would live on for love, she would, but that didn't mean it didn't feel nice for there to be a bit of spite as the reasoning too.

"Of course I do," Rebekah says. "I love you. We all do. As my brother said. You are our family."

Caroline feels like she's going to cry and wants to hug her friend close to absorb some of that monstrous strength she seems to have trapped in her tall, lithe frame, but she's a gross, bloody mess. "Okay," Caroline says softly. "I'll shower and change. But we need to talk. All of us. There can be no more secrets. I... don't think I can handle anymore." She looks between the three of them as Klaus finally releases her face again. "Is that okay?"

"Of course," Elijah says. "But would you rather wait until morning? You look exhausted, Caroline, and you lost a lot of blood. You won't die, not with the healing effects of Rebekah's blood in your system, but that doesn't mean your body won't be tired. You don't have to push yourself. You are safe here. Of that, you have my word."

And Caroline believed him. They made her feel safe and they've never once harmed her or threatened her in any way. She wanted to believe them. She wanted to trust them. After being so scared of Damon these last few weeks, she didn't want to be scared anymore. Because even if she didn't know that Rebekah was a vampire, she was still one of the people that Caroline thought about the whole time. Her safety meant everything to Caroline. Now that worry seems a bit pointless, but she can't ignore the protectiveness and love that she has for this girl.

"I want to talk tonight," Caroline says. "Please, Elijah. I'll see Damon in my nightmares. I'm not ready to face that yet."

Compassion, anger, and protectiveness work its way across the oldest of the three Mikaelson sibling's faces. He nods very slowly. "Very well. Rebekah, please." He gestures toward the stairs.

Rebekah nods, grabbing onto Caroline's hand and leading her up the stairs. "Take a shower, clean all that blood off of you. I'll grab you some new clothes. I expanded my wardrobe since the last time you spent the night." Caroline has no idea how Rebekah could easily bounce from the seriousness of what just happened to her to clothing options with such levity, but she kind of envied it.

Rebekah drops Caroline off in her huge bathroom and disappears to grab more clothes. Caroline was happy to slip out of the soiled towel and undergarments, not sure there was a way to save any of them from the amount of blood she lost, and honestly, she didn't care enough to offer it more thought than that.

***

Caroline spent way longer than need be in the shower washing herself again and again until her skin was red and tender. Then she washes her hair a few times before curling up into the fetal position just feeling the hot water pound into her back as she sits there. She wanted to stay like that forever, but she knew that she couldn't. She needed her answers.

So she finally drags herself out of the shower and into the fluffy pajama pants and a loose t-shirt that Rebekah left for her before heading down the hall and back down the stairs. She follows the sound of voices to one of the side rooms with two couches and a fireplace. The three siblings stopped whatever they were talking about when she walked into the room. Klaus had changed out of his suit, which was kind of sad as she was really looking forward to that dance tonight but supposed it was for the best.

Rebekah bounces to her feet and walks over to Caroline, taking her hand and leading her back over to the couch she was sitting on, taking her place next to her. "You were in the shower for a while. Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah," Caroline admits, rubbing at her neck to feel that the puncture wounds Damon left behind were still gone. "A little bit."

"So," Rebekah says, casting a look at her brothers before continuing, "we agreed on the truth. Whatever you want to ask, we'll answer but first, you have us what happened. With this Damon guy."

That was fair. If she wanted their story, it was only right that she offers her own too. She thought that she didn't want to talk about it, but as soon as she opened her mouth, it all just started spilling out. Everything. She talked about meeting Damon, how he scared her into inviting him in. How he talked all sorts of crazy things, but essentially taught her about vampires. She told them everything. And they had questions, some things caught their attention.

"So, he's looking for Katherine..." Elijah says softly, looking down at the glass of bourbon in his hand. "He says she survived the fire?"

"I don't know about that," Caroline says, shrugging her shoulders. "But he was adament that he was going to get her back. He didn't say anything about bringing her back from the dead or anything."

Elijah lets out a little sigh. "So Katerina may perhaps still be alive..." He casts a slow look over at the frowning Klaus next to him. "What are you thinking, brother?"

"Nothing," Klaus says flatly. "I am not currently concerned by Katerina Petrova. Although I am interested in how you are resisting compulsion."

"She's on vervain, isn't she?" Rebekah asks.

"Not without Damon being able to realize it," Klaus says. "Unless he doesn't know what the agonizing burning sensation in his mouth means every time he drinks her blood, then perhaps he simply didn't notice."

"What's vervain?" Caroline asks slowly. When the three siblings turned their gaze to her a strike of fear slams into her chest and for a moment she's back with Damon when she asks one too many innocent questions and he stares at her, contemplating if she was going to become more trouble than she was worth.

But before she had the time to back down in fear, Elijah responds easily, "Vervain is a special plant that vampires are... allergic to. It negates our magic, thus hurting us. People who take vervain become immune to compulsion. It's very likely that someone has been slipping you vervain without you knowing, seeing as it doesn't have a strong, discernable taste, but this Damon should have known you had it in your system whenever he drank your blood."

That... made sense.

"So then why wasn't he able to use compulsion on me?" Caroline asks. "Maybe there was something wrong with him? I mean, he exuded magical energy while he slept and I'm pretty sure that's not normal."

"What do you mean by that?" Klaus asks, downing his glass and then pouring himself another.

"While we slept, or he slept, I guess, next to me..." Caroline says slowly, shaking her head a bit trying not to remember those nights. Klaus's expression darkened to near blackness as he downs his drink and pours himself yet another. "I would... touch his hand and energy would flow out into my hand. It was odd. At first, I thought I was dreaming but it happened every night. It just made him more irritable and more hungry in the morning though, so I know something is happening to him."

"I've never heard of something like that before," Rebekah says, her blue eyes wide. "Does that really happen to us while we sleep?"

Klaus's dark look lightens a bit with thoughtfulness as Elijah stares at Caroline for a long moment before standing up and walking around the coffee table to sit next to her, holding out his hand for her to take. Caroline looks at his hand for a moment before taking it in her own.

"Elijah?" Caroline looks at him curiously.

"Try it with me," Elijah says easily, wrapping his hand around her own. "I want to see something."

"It only worked while Damon was asleep," Caroline says, looking down at their hands before looking back up at Elijah, confused.

Elijah quirks an eyebrow. "Did you ever try it while he was awake?"

Okay, good point. She was way too scared to try something like that. "No," she admits. "I didn't."

"Try it now," Elijah says encouragingly. "Go on, now. I promise it'll be alright."

"You're not going to get mad if something happens, right?" Caroline asks slowly, knowing that on the mornings that followed when she held on for maybe longer than she should, Damon was extraordinarily ill-tempered.

"You have my word," Elijah says politely, offering a gentle smile. "I think I know what you're doing, but I wish to see for myself."

Klaus lays his empty glass down on the table between them, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands dangling above the table as he watches with big blue eyes, red lips parting. Rebekah leans around Caroling a bit for a better look as the younger blond wraps her hands around Elijah's and draws in that feeling.

That same feeling she found comfort and strength in since that first night his energy passed into her body. She closes her eyes and concentrates on that feeling. While at first, it was hard to bring it forward, often leaving her to grasp Damon's arm for a few minutes before anything happened, but she's becoming adept at drawing it out within a few seconds now.

She opens her eyes and relishes in the feeling of power surging into her hands, up her arms and into every fiber of her being. She has no idea if it's because Elijah was awake where Damon was always asleep, or what, but he felt like... like power incarnate. Where Damon was like a babbling brook, Elijah felt like a dam, holding back the ocean as it breaks and all the water bursts through.

Caroline jerks her hands back, looking at them. Where her hands usually looked like starlight twinkled between her fingers, she watches as small arks of electricity slides between them before sinking beneath her skin, making it tingle and glow a bit. Then after almost thirty seconds, it sinks completely into her skin and her flesh returns to normal.

"I've... never felt it like that before..." Caroline gasps, looking up at Elijah with wide eyes. "Damon said that vampires are stronger with age. Are you... like really old?"

"The oldest, actually," Elijah says, dark eyes wide. "My siblings and I are Originals. We are the first of the vampires. And you, Caroline," Elijah says, staring into her pretty blue eyes. "You are a witch."

"Is anyone really surprised?"

Caroline jumps at the new voice, looking over Elijah's head to see a young man leaning against the doorframe, a sardonic smile on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?" Klaus asks the same time Rekebah gasps, "Kol?"

"Hello family," Kol says, grinning wider. "Miss me already, I see? That's a relief."

Elijah turns slowly from his place on the couch. "Enough, Kol, what did you mean by if any of us were surprised?"

"Hello to you too, Elijah," Kol says, giving his brother a look. "As for what I mean, I thought it would be obvious. Lilah was a witch, why wouldn't Caroline be one?"


	11. Professor Mikaelson

Lilah slumps over in exhaustion as all the energy leaves her body. She looks over to see a wolf nearby, the only one to come to her in the night, drawn to the magic of Niklaus transforming into a hybrid. But her spell kept him far enough away that he wouldn't be able to interfere with it. But the call of his blood was impossible for him to ignore, it seems.

Lilah sinks into the ground as the wolf no longer feels the pull as the image fades and turns away, heading back into the forest once more. That had to be him. Niklaus's birth father. Lilah lays down in the dirt, feeling all of the energy drain from her. She's not sure if her spell worked or not, but she absorbed all the magic she could from every corner of the land that she could, and now she feels her heart slowing down as the last of her energy fades from her. She looks into her clutched hand to see the sapphire broken into two.

Wrapping her hand securely around the sapphire and praying for the best, Lilah closes her eyes and falls asleep.

She's not sure what it was that drew her into awareness the next time she opened her eyes, but she felt worse now than she did when she fell asleep. Her whole body is screaming in pain and hunger and weakness. She forces herself to sit up slowly to see that night was still around her, leaving her body chilled and weak.

Lilah sits up slowly, using as much strength as she could muster for the movement when she hears it. Voices, a lot of them, all calling out her name. She turns her eyes toward the forest once more to see shapes shifting amongst the trees. Her eyes dart up toward the sky, terrified that Niklaus and Elijah got it into their silly minds to search for her after somehow realizing she didn't go home when she promised, only to see that it was definitely almost noon.

No wonder she feels so weak. She pushes herself fully to her feet and picks up everything scattered around, hiding it in a nearby bush, which was so much harder than it sounds. She rubs at her eyes, realizing that it was well into the day and not nighttime anymore. Her befuddled brain takes a few moments to orient itself. She forces herself to focus before sneaking her way into the forest, toward the siblings, spotting her beloved cousin Tatia. She forces herself to wake up, patting her cheeks a bit to get the blood flow back into them.

She throws her arms around her cousin when her back was toward her, knowing she was going to get a scolding for it, but also knowing that she has to pretend like everything s alright. She forces a jubilant laugh, despite Tatia's scream with a bright, "Gotcha!"

***

Caroline looks over at Kol. The lost brother. Caroline has known the rest of the siblings these last few weeks, but Kol has been the mysterious brother who up and vanished one night that they weren't particularly worried about, but now this makes sense. If they are all vampires, Original Vampires, Elijah said, then they wouldn't be worried about people like Damon. Damon said that the older a vampire was, the stronger they were. If what Elijah said was true too, then that would mean there wouldn't be vampires stronger than those that came first, right?

So why would they be worried about their brother?

But here he is. Tall, dark hair and eyes, and honestly, where Rebekah and Klaus look so much alike, so does Kol and Elijah.

"What do you mean?" Klaus asks, voice low and dangerous. Caroline looks around confused.

Kol smiles sardonically. "Lilah was a witch, Nik. You didn't know that?"

Klaus glares at his little brother, a frown pulling at his lips. "Lilah wasn't a witch, Kol. I would know if she was."

Kol rolls his eyes, pushing away from the wall and walking over to Caroline. "Howdy there, love. I'm Kol. The handsome brother."

Caroline's eyebrows shoot for her hairline, somewhat impressed by his flippant attitude and somewhat jealous of it. After the few weeks she had, she wished that she could flip the switch and find normality like that. "I'm Caroline. It's nice to meet you."

"Oh, I know who you are, love. You're Lilah's doppelganger."

Caroline blinks rapidly. "I'm what? Who's Lilah? What's a doppelganger?" She looks around the room at her friends, hoping that someone would be able to offer her an explanation.

Kol sits down on the table between her and Klaus, his knees brush against hers and he smiles at her. He rests his elbow against his knees, leaning in close to her. "So, my siblings haven't told you everything, have they?" He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. "Allow me to tell you the story of how the sons and daughter of Mikael and Esther became monsters."

Caroline listens to him talk. He tells her about how they lived a thousand years ago, most of them born after coming to the new world. He tells her about how there was once six of them, mentioning eldest "boorish" brother Finn and youngest "late" brother Henrik. He tells her about all of them growing up together and being relatively happy. He tells her about the death of Henrik and how their mother used her magic to curse them with the existence of immortality at the cost of an unquenchable thirst for blood.

"But before even that, we were just children growing up in our little village," Kol says, looking down at his hands with raised eyebrows. "And in that village, beautiful Tatia lived. You see, Tatia comes from a special bloodline that has since been deemed as the Petrova bloodline. The newest of that bloodline was Katerina Petrova, hence the name. Tatia had magic in her blood as a reoccurring magical anomaly throughout time. And oh how my brothers fought for her affection." He grins over at Elijah.

"Elijah and Klaus fought for her affection for a time," Rebekah cuts in, giving her brother a withering look. She waits for Caroline to look over at her before she continues, "but almost two years before out turning into vampires, Tatia's cousin came to our village. Her father was Tatai's uncle that, due to sickness came to live with them, bringing his family along. Tatia's cousin was Lilah."

Caroline blinks a few times, trying to wrap her mind around all this information.

"Lilah came and my dear half brother Niklaus fell for her instead," Kol says dreamily, fluttering long dark lashes playfully. "Now she was a real beauty too, Lilah was. Just like Tatia was. But Lilah was different than Tatia, wasn't she, brother." He casts a half look over his shoulder at Klaus. A strange feeling builds up in her chest as this look crosses over the blond Mikaelson's face.

Kol looks back over at Caroline, leaning forward to touch her cheek, a softness to his expression that looks like it hasn't been there for a long time. "Lilah was better than everything. She was pure of heart and loved a beast like my brother."

Caroline's eyebrows pull together tightly. "Wait, why do you say that?"

"Our brother is half our blood," Elijah says slowly. "Our mother had a tryst with one of our werewolf neighbors and Niklaus was the product of that."

"Werewolves are a thing too?" Caroline asks casting a look around the room.

"Oh yes, love," Rebekah says softly, rubbing Caroline's arm comfortingly. "Werewolves are a real thing."

"Lilah was special like you are," Kol says. "Lilah was a special type of witch. A very rare type of witch that is often hunted and killed by other witches for their unnatural powers. Like you, Lilah was a siphon witch. She was able to pull magic from everything around her. She had a special ability that not even other siphon witches had, I've come to learn."

"And what was that?" Elijah asks.

"Lilah was the only siphoner that I've found in the last thousand years who had the ability to use a form of spectral magic. She's able to siphon from everything around her. Just from proximity alone, she is able to siphon from magical things. A trait I'm sure is shared with dearest Caroline," Kol says easily, smiling charmingly.

"I can do something special?" Caroline asks, curiously. Her head was spinning from all of this.

"Lilah's magical prowess was beyond measure," Kol says, turning dark eyes to Caroline. "And before we turned, she made me promise to do something for her. But she spelled the secret into my mind until the moment that I saw your face again, Caroline. Or I suppose to the first time. When I saw her face again, your face, I would retrieve something for you."

This was all happening so fast, Caroline's head is spinning. "Wait, what? Did you say Lilah has my face?" Caroline doesn't have to be a genius to know what they have all been ducking and dodging around this whole time. Lilah. This person that Klaus loved. This person seems like she was close to Rebekah and even Elijah. Lilah. She and Caroline share a face, and suddenly it all makes sense.

Their love for her. The way that they treat her as if they have loved her forever. How they protect her and look after her and shower her with kindness. Their willingness to spend their days away with a girl they hardly know all because of her face. The face that mirrors the one that they knew long ago. The face of their beloved Lilah.

And that emotion, that growing feeling in her gut for them. For Klaus. It all makes sense. They don't see her. They see Lilah. Someone they actually loved. And they are imposing those feelings on her and she, like a fool, thought that she was the reason for it. That strange feeling in her chest turns cold. Like an ice-cold dagger stabbing into her heart.

"It was a real pain to look for it, but of course, anything precious to my brother Nik is a pain in the ass to find, but thankfully I found it," Kol says, wiggling his eyebrows, pleased.

Caroline is warring inside of herself trying to decide if what was happening now was enough to destroy her. She raises her eyes to see Kol dig into the pocket of his nice, suede coat and pulls out a long, silver chained necklace with a large blue sapphire dangling at the end of it. Caroline stares at it, remembering that second time at the Grill.  
Caroline looks past Kol to Klaus. Upon seeing the necklace, Klaus looks down at the leather strap around his wrist holding the twin piece of sapphire. And Caroline's heart sinks into her shoes.

"You stole my necklace?" Klaus growls eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I stole Lilah's necklace, per her request, to give to Caroline," Kol says, rolling his own eyes. He holds the necklace out to Caroline for her to take. "Here you go, love. For you."

"No." The word is sharp and finite that it takes a moment for Caroline to realize it came from her lips. Caroline shakes her head, closing her hands into tight fists. The thought of just taking that necklace makes her sick to her stomach. All this time she thought that she was special. She thought that she was making more friends and building connections with the Mikaelsons, but the truth has slapped her hard across the face. They weren't building a bond with her, they were trying to recapture an affection with someone who Caroline can only guess died.

Caroline is a substitute for someone loved and lost.

"No?" Kol repeats, surprise crossing his face.

"No," Caroline says firmly, shaking her head. She wants to cry. She can feel the tightening in her chest, but no tears come. She's cried herself out already tonight. Caroline stands up. "I can't. I'm sorry. But I can't be the connection to this Lilah person. I can't pretend that I'm not..." She runs her hands through her damp hair. The hurt plays across her face. "I have to go."

She slides her legs through the small obstacles of Kol and Elijah's knees before walking toward the door.

"Caroline!" Rebekah calls out. "No, Caroline, come back! It's not what you think!"

Klaus flickers in front of her before she could even leave the room at speeds she only ever saw Damon do. Her entire body seizes in fear for a moment before she forces herself to relax.

"You're misunderstanding something," Klaus says, staring down into her eyes.

Caroline shakes her head. "Please don't, Klaus. I can't... I'm not Lilah."

"Of course you aren't," Kol calls. "Doppelgangers are physical copies of the same person, but the souls of each are different. Plus Lilah knew there would only be one. Just you, Caroline."

Caroline wants to run away as far and as fast as she can but hurt roots her in place. Now Caroline doesn't know what to do. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Caroline asks softly.

Kol opens his mouth but Klaus sends him the darkest look Caroline has ever seen, making the younger brother's face screw up in annoyance and anger. Klaus looks over at Caroline. "If you're worried about being a replacement for Lilah, don't. You're not a replacement. You look like her, yes, and in the beginning, I was surprised by it, but you are not the first doppelganger I've dealt with. I know how to tell the difference. You are our friend, Caroline. You."

Caroline stares at him, shaking her head. "Klaus, come on. I'm naive, not an idiot."

"I never said you were an idiot," Klaus says, frowning, reaching up and cupping her face between his hands. "I just don't want you to misunderstand. I don't see you as Lilah. I knew Lilah and I can see the differences between the two of you. I am not so blind that I can't see that you are both different people. My siblings are the same."

Everyone seems to ignore Kol and his loud snort when Klaus said that he knew Lilah.

"Caroline, my brother speaks the truth," Elijah says, standing up. He buttons his suit closed and smooths it out like an unconscious reaction.

"Which is rare for him," Rebekah mutters before also standing up. "Caroline please, believe us. We've been nothing but honest with you this far, haven't we? I mean we haven't given you any reason not to trust us, right?"

No, admittedly they haven't. They've answered all of her questions, even if she didn't like the answers. But they have been answering her questions and she has no reason to believe that they have been deceitful to her. Caroline reaches up, grabbing onto Klaus's wrists and pull them from her face slowly.

"I'm sorry, my head is just spinning," Caroline admits, looking down at her hands wrapped around his wrists. Beneath the bracelets on his left wrist, she can feel his pulse beating strong against her fingertips, which still surprises her when she thinks about it. Damon was adamant about them being dead yet his heart was beating. It's just going to take some time for her to get used to this.

"How about we call it a night, shall we?" Rebekah says, stepping past her brothers and walking over to Klaus and Caroline. "Come, let's go get some rest. You've had a really long day."

Caroline nods, letting got of Klaus's wrists, her mind still spinning with all the information thrown at her. She definitely asked for this, but it was also more than she thought she was asking for. Rebekah takes her hand and starts to lead her toward the stairs when Caroline remembers something. All the craziness of the night, she completely forgot what time it was.

Caroline plants her foot to stop them from walking. "My phone, Rebekah. Where is it? I have to call my mom and tell her that I'm not coming home tonight. Her head will explode if I don't."

"It's still in my car," Klaus says, heading for the door and out. He returns a minute later with her purse, holding it out for her. Caroline takes it, seeing the blood splattered across the small silver purse before shivering and digging around for her phone inside. She finds it and drops the purse onto the table next to her, not able to even look at it.

It's just about one-thirty and Caroline can already tell her mom is going to be mad. She calls her mom, waiting for her to pick up.

"Caroline?"

"Mom, I'm sorry, I know it's late but I'm not coming home tonight," Caroline says, leaning against the railing for the staircase.

"Are you okay?" Liz asks. "Do you need me to come to pick you up?"

"No, mom, I'm fine. I'm at Rebekah's house."

Liz lets out a little sigh of relief. "Alright. Is her parents home?"

Caroline actually hasn't seen their parents. But now wasn't the time to figure out that secret too. "No, but her older brothers are. Do you remember Klaus? He's here and so is their older brother, Elijah."

"No adult supervision?" Liz asks.

Caroline sighs, rubbing her forehead. "They're adults, mom." Far older than even her own mother, even if they didn't look it. "And besides, we are just going to settle in for the night."

There is a pause before Liz asks, softly, "Are you alright, sweetheart?"

"I'm okay. I just need to go to bed and sleep the night away," Caroline says. "I just wanted to make sure you knew I wasn't going to be coming home tonight. Night, mom."

"Goodnight, Caroline."

Caroline hangs up her phone and drops it onto the table next to her purse, seeing the blood on her phone too and can't bear having it anywhere near her before turning to Rebekah and asking, softly, "Can we go to bed now?"

Rebekah nods, taking Caroline's hand again and leading her up the stairs, to her bedroom. Rebekah doesn't bother turning the lights on. They both just climb into bed and lay there in silence. Caroline stares at the ceiling for a few minutes before she feels her eyes droop closed. She's had such a long day, and the blood loss hasn't helped her exhaustion. Caroline drops off into sleep before she can offer it another thought.

***

Caroline opens her eyes, looking around Rebekah's dark bedroom. Her head is hurting, but she finds comfort in looking down at her hands. Even in the darkness, if she focuses hard enough, she can see the small dots of light moving beneath her skin from Elijah's power. Siphoning energy from Damon always helped her feel better because it ensured that he was going to sleep through the night, then she knew that she might be able to get a few winks of sleep before morning.

Elijah's energy was more powerful than Damon's and it made her feel better having it too.

She turns onto her side, ready to fall back asleep when she sees a shadow in the doorway to Rebekah's room, making her heart rate pick up. For the life of her, Caroline can't remember if they shut the door before coming to bed or not. But just staring at the dark shadow moving unnaturally paralyzes her. She feels all her limbs seize up in fear as she watches it sway back and forth.

She sucks in a deep breath and holds it, hearing something so light, so far away. It sounds like whispering. Like a thousand people all whispering at once at the edge of hearing. But it leaves such an unexplainable dread in her chest that she can't find the strength to breathe. Caroline could feel her limbs shaking as the shifting darkness suddenly stops as if turning to face her. The whispering beyond gets more intense until it's like they are whispering in the shell of her ear, and then nothing, absolute silence.

The shadow shifts suddenly, as if listening to something and Caroline's mind supplies her with her own erratic heartbeat. It was listening to her heart. Then the shadow moves closer, silently. There is a movement within the shadow when Caroline watches, in abject horror as eyes burning like blue fire appear in the darkened shape and it whispers, "There you are, my sweet Caroline."

"Damon..." Caroline croaks, shaking terribly. "Rebekah..! Rebekah!" Caroline looks over at the spot next to her on the bed to see that Rebekah is gone. Caroline is all alone. Caroline jerks forward, seeing as the shadow starts to take the shape of a man. "Rebekah! Rebekah!" Caroline yells, tears of fear streaming down her face. "Elijah! Klaus! Oh god, please! Someone!"

"No one can save you, Care," Damon says, sickeningly sweet as he steps slowly into the room. "You've already invited me in."

"Klaus! Elijah! Rebekah!" Caroline screams, sitting up sharply, grabbing the blankets around her. "Please! Someone! Please, help me!"

"No." Caroline whips around to see a woman standing next to her. She's a beautiful dark-skinned young woman with dark hair pulled up into a bun and dark eyes staring back at the shadow-Damon form with a cold, detached expression. "No one can save you, little witch," she says, her voice calm and steady. "You must be able to dispell your own demons."

Caroline shakes her head in disbelief, raising her shaking hands to cover her face. "I can't! I can't!"

"You're right, you can't," Damon sneers, condescendingly. "Never were all that good for anything, were you, blondie?"

"Shut up!" Caroline yells as she pulls her hands away and suddenly she's down in the foyer, just sitting in the middle of the room, looking up at the double stairway as Damon, now fully materialized, leisurely walks his way down the left one.

"What's it going to matter? You're going to die anyway," Damon laughs, blue eyes shining like fire in the darkness of his sclera.

"You hold the power," the woman says, standing with her hands folded neatly in front of herself. "You've been storing magic for weeks, and you just got a super-charge from an Original Vampire. You are stronger than you realize." She turns dark, fearless eyes toward the descending vampire as Caroline scrambles to her feet.

Caroline presses her back against the as Damon draws closer, making it to the bottom step.

"Leave me alone, please!" Caroline cries. "Please, go away!"

"Even if I leave, Caroline, you can't unsee vampires. They will always be around you. They will always be thirsting for your blood and for the lives of your friends," Damon says. "The only way to escape vampires is to die!"

And he lunges at her so fast her hands moved on their own flying up as some sort of shield to keep him away. Her scream of fear turns to one of pain as t sounds like an explosion goes off next to her head. Wood breaking and glass shattering pull her back into reality.

Caroline's ears are ringing as the world lightens around her. The sun peeking in from the windows around her in the early morning and there is something strong wrapped around her and pressing her body against the door tightly. It takes a moment for the panic to work its way out of her system and for her to see that it's Elijah protecting her from the beautiful glass chandelier that was hanging up in the foyer now fallen to the floor and having shattered into millions of pieces.

Caroline looks over Elijah's shoulder to see a chunk of the wall blown out by a gaping hole. Her blue eyes turn toward Elijah to see blood dripping from his ear as he leans away from her a bit. His lips move, and it takes a moment for the ringing in her ear to settle enough for her to hear him ask, "Are you okay, Caroline?"

Caroline nods slowly, looking around with eyes blown wide. "Wh... what happened?"

Kol steps out of one of the side rooms, a grin on his lips. "You turned our foyer into a warzone and threw Nik back into the early fourteen hundreds." He looks deeply amused while Elijah glares at him.

Caroline stares at him, not sure what to say to that as Rebekah emerges from the top of the staircase, looking around with large blue eyes, her mouth falling open in surprise as she takes in the scene before her. "What the bloody hell happened here?"

"Caroline destroyed Nik in one swing of the hand," Kol laughs, leaning against the wall, pointing to the hole with his thumb. "Look, dear sister, isn't it perfectly bastard shaped?"

The corners of Rebekah's lips turn up a bit in amusement as she makes her way down the stairs.

"Watch your feet, Rebekah," Elijah warns as he grabs onto Caroline's arms and wrap them around her neck before leaning down and scooping her up easily into his arms and makes his way beneath the staircase to the right and heads for the kitchen, glass crunching beneath his nice dress shoes the whole time.

Caroline looks down Elijah's back to see thick glass pieces thrown like shrapnel when the chandelier fell embedded into his back. She jerks back in surprise, blue eyes widening in horror.

"Oh my god, Elijah! Your back!"

"Oh, it's alright. I'll heal from it once I get the glass out," Elijah says as he sits her up on the counter before going to remove his jacket and drop it next to her. His jacket looks like he grew glass spikes out of his back. Caroline looks up to see Kol, glaring with Rebekah on his back walking into the kitchen. He drops her right at the threshold of the room. She glares at him before making her way over to Caroline to look at her feet.

Caroline can see her feet bleeding, but it doesn't hurt. Her blue eyes look toward the opening again as Klaus walks in, furrow-browed and annoyed. There is dried blood across his forehead but it looks like the wound is already healed. He pats woodchips and drywall dust off of his shoulders, letting out a deep sigh, looking around the room with a prominent frown on his lips.

He looks mad. And had Caroline been thrown through a wall and into another room, she would be mad too. Especially in my own home first thing in the morning? Yeah, Caroline would definitely be mad too. It takes her a minute to understand what had happened. A nightmare. It had to of been a nightmare, coupled with sleep walking and sleep attacking too. Now she's lucky that her friends are immortal vampires. She could have seriously hurt someone. Or worse, kill them.

She doesn't want to think about what would have happened had she been home with her mom and this had happened.

"You're okay," Rebekah says, straightening up and heading over to Elijah as he unbuttons his white dress shirt stained a dark red in the back. She grabs out some tweezers from a drawer and gets to work on his back. "Elijah took most of the damage. You have a few cuts is all, Caroline. I'll grab some bandages in a minute."

Caroline nods slowly as Klaus walks over to her. He places his hands on either side of her, on the counter to stare into her eyes. His expression looks mad, but his eyes look sad. Or at least, concerned.

"Are you okay?" He asks, letting out a little sigh of relief when she nods. "Other than your feet, are you in any pain?"

Caroline shakes her head slowly. "No," she says softly, then needlessly adds, "and my feet don't really hurt either."

Klaus nods, staring into her eyes. "That's good," he says.

"I'm sorry," Caroline whispers, seeing Rebekah rip a piece of glass from Elijah's back. He doesn't say anything or make a noise of pain, but the sound of it makes Caroline sick to her stomach, especially knowing that she was the cause of ut. "I'm sorry I hurt you guys."

Her blue eyes raise above his eyebrow to look at the drying blood smeared across his forehead. There doesn't appear to be any sort of mark beneath it. He really was a vampire with incredible healing, like Damon said.

"We will heal without hindrance," Klaus says easily, leaning in closer as Caroline flinches. She catches Rebekah a particularly deep piece from Elijah's back and he braces himself against the counter, hissing in pain despite Rebekah's soft apology.

Caroline leans closer to his face, realizing her was helping distract her a bit. "I'm sorry for breaking your house too."

"Things can be replaced," Klaus says easily. "I'm assuming you didn't do it intentionally."

"I was having a nightmare," Caroline admits, shaking a bit at the memory of it. "God, I'm so lucky I was here and not at home. I could have killed someone..." She swallows thickly in fear, now terrified to return home for an entirely different reason. Despite their differences, if Caroline ever hurt her mother, she would never forgive herself.

"Well," Kol cuts in from where he's seated at the dining table, a smirk across his lips, "tern it is a good thing you're here, love. You're a newly awakened witch trying to learn her powers and I happen to know an awful lot about witches and their spells." His wolfish grin spreads wide across his face. "Just call me Professor Mikaelson."


	12. He's Here

"Oh my gosh! Lilah!" Tatia gasps, throwing her hand over her heart with wide brown eyes, so similar to the eyes that Lilah was staring into the night before. Eyes filled with tears as the one she loved was torn away from her. But Tatia's eyes were wide in surprise, but thankfully alright. She wasn't hurt or in pain like the image of Elena Gilbert was. "Where were you? I thought something happened to you."

"I'm okay," Lilah says, gripping her cousin's hands. She forces a smile, trying to forget the ache in her body from using so much magic and from sleeping outdoors all night long. "I just wanted to surprise everyone."

"We are surprised," Elijah says as he and Kol make their way around the same bush and into their growing circle. "I was concerned when Tatia said you didn't come home last night."

"Are you hurt?" Niklaus asks, popping up next to her, looking her up and down for any injuries. He reaches out and touches her arm. "Your skin is cold. Lilah, what happened to going home last night?"

Lilah shakes her head. "I did go home. Late, and left early." She turns to look over at Tatia. "By the time I got home you were already asleep, and I left before you woke up, dear cousin."

Tatia lets out a slow, drawn-out sigh, still looking worried, but nods slowly. She presses her lips together tightly before squeezing Lilah's hands tightly and taking a few shaking breaths to calm her heart down from its rapid beating. "Okay, maybe. You have done that before..." She links her fingers with Lilah's, looking into her blue eyes with pretty brown ones. "Just don't scare me like that anymore, okay?"

"I'm sorry," Lilah says softly as Rebekah, her hands on little Henrik's shoulders, also emerges into view, looking relieved. Henrik, who no doubt hadn't a clue what was going on, smiles at the sight of her. Henrik pulls away from Rebekah and runs into Lilah's embrace, wrapping his arms around her stomach. "Hello, Henrik!" She gushes, running her fingers through his wild, near shoulder-length dark hair, kissing the top of his head which now reaches her chest and hugging him tightly, before turning sparkling blue eyes toward the only daughter of Mikael and Esther. "Happy birthday, Rebekah."

"Thank you," Rebekah says, smiling sweetly.

"Well," Finn says, stepping around Klaus with his arms crossed over his chest. "Now that you have sufficiently frightened all of us, Lilah, was there something you wanted to show us in celebration for Rebekah's birthday?"

Lilah's excitement pulls her from her physical slump. She kisses the top of Henrik's head one more time before pulling away and offering her hand for him to take. "I do, Finn," she says looking down at the youngest brother instead of the oldest. "How about it, Henrik? Why don't we show my cousin and your brothers and sister our secret place?"

Henrik grins brightly, bouncing up and down in excitement. "Yes! Yes, let's go!"

***

It shouldn't surprise Caroline that being thousand-year-old siblings that are vampires would be able to make it so that they had a new chandelier and cleaners in within two hours of a call on Elijah's phone. Kol brought her upstairs to one of the offices so that they could be away from people and talk. He started it all by telling her all about witches, about their powers and abilities. About the history as they knew it about witches. And he even told her about what he knew of siphon witches.

Which, unfortunately, there isn't a lot known about them. Siphon witches are so hated by other witches that they tend not to live for very long after they awaken their own magic.

"Normally, witches teach their young spells as a right of passage into adulthood," Kol says, sitting down in front of Caroline, mimicking her crossed legs after closing the office door since the handymen downstairs were starting to get really loud as they set to work. "But, your magic awakened due to magical influence. Essentially, before that, you were like a regular human."

"Wait, so what triggered my magic? Other magic?" Caroline asks, eyebrows pulling together tightly.

Kol shrugs his shoulders. "I wasn't here. My guess is when that guy, what was his name? Demon?"

"Damon," Caroline corrects, then realizes that it really wasn't that far off, and then waves her hands around dismissively. "You know what? Never mind. It really doesn't matter. What did Damon do, exactly?"

"You've been without magical influence, so you were basically human," Kol says, rubbing at the back of his head. "My guess, as he's compelled you, he's bombarding your body with magic. The level of magic needed for a bit of compulsion is so minute, it would probably be needed five or six times before you've been introduced to enough magic to awaken your siphoning power."

Caroline nods slowly. "That makes sense, I guess, but..." she blinks a few times, going back to that first night with Damon, how he looked into her eyes, his pupils dancing. "But... I don't think Damon has ever compelled me. In fact, if compulsion comes from the strange dilation of the irises, then it hasn't worked for Damon or Stefan."

Kol raises his eyebrows. "Okay, maybe you were touched by magic before they tried to compel you."

"She was."

Caroline looks over Kol's head to see Rebekah stepping into the room. She closes the door quietly behind herself and walks over to Caroline and Kol, slowly lowering down to sit on the floor next to them. Her knees crack at the action and Caroline felt that in her very soul.

"I was?" Caroline asks, eyebrows pulling together again. "When?"

"Back around the time we first met," Rebekah says softly. "My brothers, Elijah and Nik, they both compelled you within fifteen hours of each other. Do you remember when you stayed the night and we watched movies?"

Caroline blinks a few times. "Yes... are you saying we didn't watch movies?"

Rebekah presses her lips together tightly, slowly shaking her head. "No. I'm sorry. Actually, you were in an accident that night. You hit someone in your car and then someone attacked you from behind. My brothers and I found you on the road and brought you here. Nik took your memory of the accident and filled it in with a peaceful memory, while Elijah added a bit of detail when you started to fight the compulsion."

Caroline frowns, bringing her hand up to her head, remembering that morning with such clarity. The bandage around her head. How she couldn't really remember any of the movies she and Rebekah watched aside from the Notebook. How her memory of falling down and busting her head feels like she's seeing it through a dream. She then thinks about her windshield, how it didn't look like her windshield. How when Klaus walked into the kitchen from the same hallway that led from the front door, that piece of paper that he just discarded into the trashcan. How both brothers were up so early.

She doesn't remember everything, but just thinking about it, Rebekah has to have told the truth.

"It may take five or six bouts of compulsion from a regular vampire," Rebekah says slowly, looking down at her hands resting on her lap, "but it sounds like two is the magic number for Original Vampires."

Caroline stares at the hardwood floor for a long time, trying to understand what she learned. So... Klaus and Elijah both successfully compelled her. They compelled her to sell this story about her having come over to watch movies with Rebekah because she was in a car accident. No, it wasn't just a car accident, she hit someone with her car. And if they were trying to get her to forget it rather than take them both to the hospital, it's safe to assume what happened to the person that she hit.

"I... I killed someone?" Caroline whispers, drawing her eyes over to Rebekah.

"I am so sorry, love," Rebekah says softly, reaching out to touch her leg. "I'll tell you about it, but unfortunately, we don't have anything more to add then what we knew that night. But I'll tell you all of it."

***

Caroline drives home in silence. She spent the whole day with Kol. Caroline wanted to talk to Klaus about having killed his friend but wasn't sure how to say it. How to put it into words. Obviously, Klaus already knew what she had done and wanted her to forget, and while she has no memory of that night aside from the story that she was compelled to remember, she knows that she has to speak to him. She needs to express her condolences and her regret. She doesn't know what happened exactly, just what Rebekah could reiterate to her, so really the only thing she could do was apologize.

But Klaus left the house before she got the chance and Kol expressed the importance of her focusing on learning about her powers and how to use them. She knew he was right, but still, she felt bad for leaving things unfinished.

She did speak with Elijah. She told him that she knew what happened, that while she didn't remember that night, she knew that he compelled her to help with the lie Klaus made. He apologized for the deceit, which Caroline accepted, realizing that while she was upset that they were compelling her, the reason that they did it was to help her. She is a bit mad about it, but the apology was enough to make her feel better.

Kol, appeasing to her orderly, neurotic mind, helped her write notes and flashcards to teach her the symbols and the meanings. She trusted her memory, but it made her feel better to have something to keep looking at. He taught her some very basic spells to practiced and even brought her a "magical object" that she could siphon from. It was a simple metal orb full of magic that Kol stole from a siphon witch that was killed by other witches. Caroline wasn't sure how she felt about that but appreciated having something to help her practice.

Caroline had to borrow clothes from Rebekah again seeing as she tore her dress off of her. She might as well just take all of Rebekah's clothes at this point. Seeing as she's going through them like wildfire.

Liz is there when Caroline gets home and while she's anxious to get back to looking at her flashcards and practice the very simple spells that Kol taught her, but when Liz asked her if she wanted to watch a movie as soon as she walked in through the front door, she wanted to say no. But after offering it a modicum of thought, she realized that she wanted to do something without thinking for a while. And seeing as all her time was focused on Damon in all capacities, even when he wasn't there. It's like her life got so absorbed in Damon that she truly lost connection with everything else.

So Caroline agrees, falling onto the couch next to her mom and curling up into Liz's side. For a moment, her mom froze up, no longer used to the weight of her own daughter leaning against, before she relaxes, taking this time to run her fingers lightly through Caroline's hair. And the relief that Caroline felt was enough to physically hurt her. She kept it in, holding the pain tightly to her chest to keep from just sobbing uncontrollably, but she could only sit silently as the movie played on in front of her.

She didn't watch it. She doesn't remember any of what it was about, but it felt good to be in this moment. It felt good to be in the arms of her mother. For the first time in weeks, Caroline truly felt safe. And she relished in the moment, despite it still being relatively early, around eight-thirty at night, Caroline fell asleep in her mom's arms.

***

For the next few days, Caroline did what Caroline did best: she planned. She organized. There were some school activities that needed someone at the helm of, which she jumped at. At this point, anything to get her mind off of the horrible pain in her chest from these last few weeks. Anything other than focus on how afraid she was, and how angry. So she filled all of her time with organizing and practicing her magic. Every day, after cheer practice or whatever other extracurricular took up her time.

And in that time, she hadn't heard anything about Damon. When she finally gained the courage to ask Stefan - in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner - what he was up to, he easily replied that Damon had gone out of town and probably wasn't going to be coming back, Caroline knew. She knew why she was spared that night but she had to run to Rebekah as soon as he walked away. She had to know the truth and while Rebekah didn't really know for certain, she did affirm Caroline's own thoughts.

Stefan stopped Damon. Damon was going to kill her but Stefan stopped him.

At least that is what both Rebekah and Caroline believed. Meaning, when Caroline asked Stefan about Damon, he could have told her the truth. He could have sat her down and explained vampires, explained what happened to her, but he didn't. And while they weren't best friends or anything, she still felt that he owed her at least the truth. And he didn't tell her. She deserved the truth but he didn't offer it. Maybe he's still under the impression that the secret is safe, except he has to know that it isn't.

He knows that Damon was trying to kill her and still he did nothing. His only true way of helping her was pretending that it didn't happen.

And as angry as she was at the time, she found some semblance of relief knowing that he was gone. That is, until the day of the car wash fundraiser when she felt it. Him calling out to her. She didn't feel it at first, but once she took a second to step away to do a bit of practicing, pulling the orb out of her jacket while hidden in one of the classrooms, she felt it. At first, it felt far away, and she couldn't tell right away that it was Damon.

It was only when she was standing in front of the door to Damon's prison. He was reaching out for her, telling her to let him out, that she finally found herself back in her own body. It was like, somehow, she lost complete control of herself. She came back to herself right as her fingers touched the latch to his prison. She has no idea what brought her back into her body, but when she did, when she realized that not only was Damon still in town, he was calling out to her, somehow using their connection.

All this time drinking blood from her... all this time absorbing energy from him, it was like they somehow made this frail connection where he could reach out to her mind. She felt Zach Salvatore grab onto her and pull her away from Damon, and she turned and ran away. She stopped at the end of the hall to see Damon having reached through the bars, grabbing onto Zack while pulling one of his arms through, sinking his teeth into the flesh. She hesitates for a single moment, her eyes locking with Zach's, and then she's running back to him.

She grabs onto Zach's arm, not knowing what exactly to do other than that she had to do something. Anything to get Zach away from the starving, snarling vampire in the prison before her. Caroline chokes in fear turning to see Damon's blue eyes glowing like fire in the darkness of his prison. He looked like an actual demon. The terror paralyzed her in fear for a split second, both Damon's glowing eyes and Zach's screams, before Damon's teeth slices through something no doubt vital, sending a spray of blood across Caroline.

Caroline screams, pulling back as Zach's eyes roll up into his head and Caroline knew that it was too late for him. All this time leaning magic - and it really only was a few days - and yet she felt the same as she did that night. Completely helpless. And as she ran away, tears of anger and fear streaming down her face, she severed that bond. She grabbed onto the orb still in her pocket, sucking energy into herself - thanks to Kol, her siphoning ability has become so much easier - and then reaching into herself to find that thin connection and severing it. Like a knife through butter.

And it actually hurt her. Maybe she didn't need to be like that, but she had to run away. Severing that bond was like a strike to the chest, leaving her pained and breathless.

Oh, the sight she must have been running through the streets. Flip flops, shorts, bikini top with wild braids and tears streaming from her face, holding her stomach like she was stabbed. And she no doubt has some blood on her, but no one stopped to look at her long enough for her to see what their reactions are. She hadn't realized how far she ran until she found herself on the grass leading up to the Mikaelson mansion. Like all homes of epic size, the front lawn feels like it went on forever.

She needed to get away. She needed to be somewhere other than the Salvatore mansion. She felt weak. She hated this feeling more than anything. She wanted to feel strong again. Safe again. With the people that help make her feel that way. And because no one else would believe her. But they would. He would.

"Klaus!" She yells as soon as her feet touch the grass and she stumbles her way to the house, heart-pounding, and muscles aching. To have walked from the school to the Salvatore mansion, and then to have run from there to the Mikaelson's mansion has left her legs feeling like jelly with a painful cramp in her side that stretches every time she breathes. "Klaus!"

Just as the scary thought of him not being home crosses her mind, the front door opens and Kol appears, staring back at her with big, brown eyes while Klaus pushes past him and off the front porch making a beeline for her. At this point, she doesn't care if he never apologizes to her for compelling her, she just needed a bit of his strength so that she could go on. Just a teeny tiny bit and she would be okay. Just a small bit and only for a moment. That's all she'll ask for. Then she will stand on her own two feet. She will be okay.

He meets her on the lawn and she half throws herself, half falls into his arms, unable to cry because she's wheezing so much. His warmth crashes into her as his arms encircle her waist. Bringing her arm up around his neck, she sees her hand is covered in drying blood. Caroline brings up her other hand to see more blood. And in her ears, she can hear Zach scream.

She wraps her arms around his neck tightly, squeezing her eyes closed. She takes a few minutes to try to catch her breath, ignoring the pain on her legs and her side and the fear gripping her heart.

"Dead, he's dead," she gasps in his ear. "Zach Salvatore is dead. Damon... he's here. He's still in Mystic Falls. Stefan lied... he lied."

"Are you hurt?" Klaus asks darkly, running his hands up and down her back slowly. "What did Damon do to you?"

Caroline shakes her head. "He didn't... I... He killed Zach Salvatore. He was in the cellar..." She takes a few, shaking breaths, trying to use the man in front of her's slow, even breath, and his steadily beating heart against her own chest, trying to calm down. "Damon was drinking his blood. God... he had to of been down there for days..."

"The blood, Caroline," Klaus says softly, "who's is it?"

"Zach's," Caroline whispers. "Damon was killing him and I tried to... I tried to help but... I... I didn't. I didn't help him." Tears slide down her cheeks. "I couldn't help him." She opens her eyes to look at Kol still standing on the porch with Elijah stepping out next to him. "Help me..." Caroline whispers to Kol while still looking at the younger of the three brothers. "Help me learn my magic, Kol. Please. I hate feeling like this. I hate being weak like this."

"I can teach you everything you want to know, love," Kol says, nodding slowly.

"Teach me how to defend myself against a vampire," Caroline says, turning her fear into anger. She isn't going to spend the rest of her life afraid. She won't do it. She'll be strong.

***

Convincing Klaus not to just go rip Damon apart himself took Caroline, Elijah, Kol, and Rebekah, when she came home. Caroline was scared. She was terrified of everything, but she didn't want anyone to kill anyone. But she wanted to be able to protect herself from Damon. And from anyone else like Damon. She doesn't want to be the whining crying baby anymore. She wants to be more than a liability.

"Klaus," Caroline says, zipping up the light jacket she ran off without from the school that Rebekah brought to her, "I want to handle this myself. I can do this, Klaus." He stares back at her with a hard, level gaze. "I can!" She insists. "I just... need Kol to help me a bit more."

"Come on, Nik," Kol says, laying his arm across her shoulders as they stand around the kitchen talking. "Lilah was a very powerful witch. No doubt Caroline will be too. And she's progressed a lot in just a few days. You, of all people, will deny her justice by her own hands?" Kol and Klaus stare at one another - Klaus angry and Kol indignant. There is a lot of bad blood between them, Caroline can tell. "You of all people know how important a bit of reassurance in your own strength will improve someone's confidence."

Klaus presses his lips together tightly, a frown pulling at the corner of his lips, not looking happy about it.

"Klaus," Caroline says softly, "he didn't hurt me. I'm just... tired of being weak. He didn't hurt me, and I don't want him to ever be able to again. I'm done being afraid all of the time. Please. Let me handle this my own way."

Klaus lets out a long, drawn-out sigh, before nodding. "Very well, Caroline. We'll play it your way for now." He says that, but she feels that relinquished control is based solely on a whim. As quickly as she got it, she could lose it.

Rebekah nods, standing up from her chair and holding out a hand for Caroline. "Come along, darling. Come back with me to school so that you can get your car. I'm guessing that you're going to be spending the night. Or the next few nights. So go home and get everything you'll need for school." A pause, then, while looking her up and down. "Ah, and you'll definitely need more clothes. The last thing you need is perverted, lecherous eyes on you. Almost like they forgot in this day and age, you're still considered a minor."

Caroline flushes, giving Rebekah a sideways look as she takes her hand and leads her to the door, trying not to think about how the vampire was looking at her half brother from over her shoulder as they go.

Caroline rubs at her face as Rebekah drops her off at the passenger side of her car before going around the other side and climbing into the driver's side. As they drive back in silence, Caroline looks down at her hands that just an hour ago was covered in blood, but now was relatively clean thanks to Rebekah when she walked in through the front door and saw Caroline staring at her bloodied hands. Looking under her nails, she can still see a bit of caked blood she's going to have to clean out before she does anything else.

Rebekah drops her off at the school, promising to make sure that everything from the car wash is dealt with. Caroline just needed to go home, get everything gathered up and head back to Rebekah's house. That she would meet her there.

Caroline agreed, knowing that she could trust Rebekah, and headed home, showering for a long time to make sure all the blood was off of her, before gathering up everything, giving her mom and call to explain that she was staying over at Rebekah's for a few days and that she would be back soon. She kissed her mom on the cheek and headed out, which was probably enough to shock her into forgetting to ask what she was going to be doing there for so long. But she at least remembered to remind her to go to school.

"Bye mom, love you!"

"Love you too!"

Once Caroline makes it back to Rebekah's house, she heads inside and up to Rebekah's room, dropping her stuff off before going in search of Kol. He was in the same office that she's been training in for the last few days, already getting things prepared for her so that they could get started right away. Caroline drops her purse, which she forgot that she was holding, onto the floor and kneels down next to Kol.

While Caroline is alternating between lighting candles with her mind and making feathers float, Kol helps himself to clean up the bit of mess that she made when her bag fell on the floor. She rests the orb onto her lap and summons up the magic to make the feather in front of her float when Kol's voice, calling out to her, breaks her concentration.

"Where did you get this, Caroline?"

Caroline looks over to see the amber necklace that Damon wanted the night of the Founder's Ball. She completely forgot that she stuffed it into her purse. Caroline blinks a few times, trying to recall if she had pulled it from her purse or not, but seeing as it was right there, it had to of stayed in her purse. In the excitement of the last week, she forgot about it.

"Oh... I got that... the night of the Founder's day party. Damon wanted it for some reason. Why? Do you know it?"

Kol looks down at the stone for a long time before shaking his head. "No, but it's a magical artifact. I can tell you that much. Do you know what he wanted with it?" He looks back up at her. Caroline shakes her head.

"He didn't tell me." She puts the orb down on the floor and reaches out for it. "What would a vampire want with a magical necklace?"

"There are plenty of reasons to want one, depending on what they do, but most of the time they are only useful to other witches above anyone else," Kol explains, passing it over to her. "Let's see if we can find out what it's for. Use magic from the orb to activate the magic in the necklace."

"How do I do that?" Caroline asks, cradling the necklace in her hands.

"I'll show you," Kol says, scooting in front of her again and moving everything else out of the way. "Keep hold of it like that, good. Now, close your eyes and tap into the magic within. Don't siphon it out, just feel for it. You should get a feeling of what kind of magic it is."

Caroline holds the necklace to her chest, closing her eyes and focusing on the magic dwelling inside the stone. It takes her a moment to switch over her mindset from siphoning magic to simply tapping into it. She has yet to master the art of mindlessly shifting back and forth between siphoning and simply feeling for magic. Kol isn't worried, says that it'll take practice to be able to just do it, but for now she just focuses on switching over her instinct before doing anything else.

Caroline feels it with her magic, jolting a bit, feeling that pain in her side again from cutting off Damon, like a wound inside of herself. She makes a mental note to ask Kol about it, hoping there was some way to heal from it, whether there be a magical reason for it to be healed or if time will simply do it, Caroline just needs to know for peace of mind.

She shoves those thoughts away. They aren't important now. She'll ask Kol later. For now, the necklace.

She clears her mind, forcing everything else away. She feels the magic swirling around in the crystal, feeling something... familiar. She knows that she hasn't met this person before, but they feel familiar.

When Caroline opens her eyes, she's standing in the middle of a field. She's not sure what kind of field it was as whatever was growing there either hasn't started growing yet or has already been harvested for the year. Caroline doesn't know enough about agriculture to be able to tell. The sun is bright and shining high in the school and Caroline can feel the gentle heat beating down on her and a gentle breeze pulls at her hair and loose clothes. It's a nice feeling and with all the madness that has been going on in her life, she hasn't had the time to simply enjoy something as mundane as the weather.

And she liked this weather. Not too hot, not too cold. Warm with a nice breeze.

Caroline wishes she could enjoy this weather to the fullest, but she feels something at her back and a soft voice say, "Hello, Caroline."

Caroline jumps, her entire body freezing for a moment forcing herself to relax and turn around slowly to see a young black woman. It takes Caroline just a moment to place her. The same woman as the night Damon almost killed her. She was dressed the same but now, in the full sunlight, Caroline can see with no uncertainty that she's beautiful. Something about her is ethereal and elegant and powerful. She looks like the world bends to her will and hers alone. Like a delicate warrior goddess.

Frail and dainty in appearance, but there is power in her that is monstrous. Caroline is immediately in awe of her.

"Uh... hello..." Caroline stares into her cool, dark eyes. "How did you know my name?"

"I know a lot about you, Caroline. The ancestors speak, and they have much to say."

Caroline remembers Kol talking briefly about the different types of witches and where they get their magic from. One type is those that draw from their own ancestors. More dead witches, more power for the living ones. At least, that was how Kol described it.

"Are you a witch?" Caroline asks, staring down into the other's eyes. "Are you like me?"

"I am a witch, yes," the young woman says. "But no. Not like you. I am not a siphon witch as you are. I harness the power of the elements, and of my ancestors. I draw my magic from many different places."

Caroline blinks a few times, unsure of what was going on. "I see. So what is this place?"

"This is a pocket dimension made within my necklace. I crafted it using my magic so that when the time came and my life came to an end, I would be able to house a part of my spirit here. So that I may do what must be done," the woman says, her voice cool and even.

"Do what must be done?" Caroline echoes.

The young woman nods slowly. "Yes."

"Who are you?" Caroline asks, realizing she still didn't know.

"Forgive me," the woman says slowly, reaching up to lightly touch her forehead, as if embarrassed for forgetting her manners, before lowering her hand and folding it neatly in front of me. "I am Emily Bennett. And I'm going to need your help, Caroline, in stopping Katherine Pierce."


	13. Trust that

"Oh wow!" Rebekah gasps, her pretty blue eyes widening as far as they will go. "How come I've never seen this river? I've lived here my whole life!"

"I don't know," Lilah says easily, pulling off her shoes and walking across the rocks toward the water. "Henrik and I came to pick flowers," she nods toward ridge with pretty flowers blooming, "and we found this. Happy birthday, Rebekah!" She holds her hand out for the other blond to take.

Rebekah takes her hand, kicking off her own shoes before following her into the water. It was nice feeling the cool water on her skin and the soft mud beneath her feet. Kol doesn't even need prompting to wade into the water, admiring the colorful fish swimming in it with big, dark eyes.

"Happy birthday, Bekah!" Henrik yells out, excited as he races into the river, barely gets his own shoes off before he's running in, grabbing onto one of Rebekah's hands and they both start spinning around laughing loudly and admiring the crystal clear water.

Lilah looks over at Niklaus, Elijah and Finn, wiggling her eyebrows before she bends over, not caring if the end of her dress weighs down by the water, and scoops a handful of water and splashes it toward them. Laughing when the three men shrink back from the water. Tatia laughs, pulling her shoes off properly next to a large rock before offering her drop-dead gorgeous, man-killing smile to the three brothers.

"Scared?" She asks loosely, before turning and walking slowly into the water, eyebrows wiggling at Lilah as she wades into the water. 

And her teasing worked. No well, able-bodied man would like to be thought of as scared by the most beautiful girl in their village - even if they were like Finn and weren't really interested in her in a romantic way. He couldn't be shown up by his younger brothers, who were significantly more interested in her. Lilah watches as Elijah makes his way over to her and they walk deeper into the water together. Elijah's brown eyes are bright and happy at having beautiful Tatia's full attention.

Finn makes his way over to Rebekah and Henrik while Niklaus steps next to Lilah and she grins at him. Caroline leans in close to his ear to whisper into it without anyone else hearing her, "Remind me, I have something to give you later, okay?"

Klaus pulls back a bit, staring at her with big blue eyes. "You have something for me?"

Lilah nods, grabbing onto his hand and pulling him over to Finn, Rebekah and Henrik, still whispering so they won't hear. "Yes, but later, okay? Remind me to give it to you."

Klaus flushes, nodding. "Okay, I'll remind you."

***

"Katherine Pierce?" Caroline echoes. "Who's that?" She remembers hearing about Katherine, now it's time to finally get some answers.

Emily Bennett turns her dark eyes toward the horizon of the artificial dimension with a completely impassive face. She sucks in a slow breath before saying, evenly, "Katherine Pierce is an old vampire. By now she would probably be over five hundred years old. She was thought to be burned alive over a hundred years ago, but she was not. She had a plan put in place to survive. I need your help to ensure that doesn't happen."

"Why do you need my help?" Caroline asks, waiting until the beautiful dark-skinned woman turns her eyes back to the blond. "What can I do for you?"

"I can't use my magic any longer. I am only here because of my talisman. Without it, I can do nothing. I would need to inhabit the body of a witch, preferably one of my own bloodline to destroy it, I would rather my magic be destroyed than allow it to fall into his hands," she says contemplatively.

Caroline blinks a few times. "Into whose hands?"

"Damon Salvatore's hands," Emily says flatly, turning dark eyes toward Caroline. "I made a deal with him before I was killed here in Mystic Falls for him to protect my family. The Founder's Council was hunting down witches and I needed him to protect my family from them. He did if I kept Katherine safe. But our deal is off. Katherine cannot be allowed to walk this Earth again. I won't allow it."

Caroline's eyebrows pull together tightly. "Why would you want to break your promise?" Damon... saved Bonnie's ancestors? Caroline couldn't believe for a moment that Damon would do something to help someone else. But Katherine, Damon has mentioned her before. Someone who looks a lot like Elena, from what she understands. And if Damon loves this Katherine woman so much, maybe he was willing to do something extreme like help someone in order to be with her.

Caroline is surprised, but she supposed weirder things might have happened. But she has so many questions, so many things that don't make sense. So many things that she wanted to know more about but wasn't sure how to ask it, or what really to ask.

"Katherine Pierce can't be trusted," Emily says softly like she was reminding herself of something that hurt. "She will always do what is best for her, no matter who it hurts in the process. She betrayed me, she didn't think I knew, but I did. She betrayed me first, so I won't help her anymore. Do you think Damon is bad? No, not compared to Katherine. He was a kind boy before Katherine sunk her claws into him. She made him this way. She couldn't decide between the brothers, the one that adored her, and the one that admired her. She loved being the center of both their worlds. She would rather destroy the beautiful, human parts of their souls than ever allow them to be away from her."

"What do you mean?" Caroline asks, her head spinning.

"Stefan and Damon. She liked the attention both Salvatore brothers gave her, but the younger one was the one she wanted in the end, but still turned the older one too. Why? Because Stefan didn't want it. He didn't want to be a vampire. He was afraid of the unknown. Not Damon. No, Damon was too infatuated by her to see her for the monster she was," Emily spits angrily.

Caroline can't imagine a time when Damon was good, or innocent, but then again, looking at it impartially - no matter how hard that is - she could kind of see it. She could understand that if someone twisted his mind... perhaps it's possible that he wasn't always like this. It would explain why he has little care for the lives of others. Not that it somehow makes everything better... but it's still something to think about.

Then Emily shows her. Through the shimmering of the air around them. Caroline watches as hazy images of a girl, who not only looked strongly like Elena but exactly like Elena, dancing with Elijah and Klaus. It's hard to make out, but their hair is longer, their style of clothing... it's not what she recognizes. She's bouncing between both brothers, willing flirting with both with big, beautiful brown eyes and Caroline feels it once more.

That aching, painful stab in her chest when it comes to Elena and her unbelievable beauty. Caroline can't think about it. Not now. And besides, this girl may have Elena's face, but she isn't Elena. She's someone else. Someone evil, by the sounds of it.

Caroline watches as the hazy image clears up to something more recently, something through Emily's own eyes. She watches human Stefan and Damon as Katherine bounces between them, batting her eyelashes and using a husky voice to speak to them that Caroline recognizes from Elena as her flirty voice. While she's watching, Emily tells her about the curse of the doppelganger. Tells her about how they are magical beings because they are reoccurring natural phenomena.

The image fades back into the field and they lapse into silence for a few minutes before Emily says, "But I need you to help me, between witches. And because you are my descendant's friend."

"Bonnie," Caroline says softly. "Is she..?"

"A witch? Yes," Emily says softly. "She's coming into her power now. She's learning as you are."

Bonnie... is a witch. Bonnie is like Caroline. They are both witches. She must have learned that she was a witch recently like Caroline had. For the first time in a long time, Caroline feels a tangible connection to her best friend. They were witches! They were both witches! The next chance she gets, she needs to talk to Bonnie. They need to talk about this. Next time.

"I won't ask you to do something without offering something in return," Emily says, turning to completely face Caroline. "I need you to give my necklace to Bonnie. As my descendant, my power and hers are linked. I will share my power with her. Only her. But I will give you something in return."

Honestly, Caroline didn't need anything in return. The necklace belonged to Bonnie's family. It was only right that Bonnie has it - nevermind that it's a link to a magical ancestor. Caroline wouldn't ask to trade anything just to return something that didn't belong to her. Maybe if it was Damon and she was willing to deal with, but never Bonnie. It belonged to Bonnie. Caroline wasn't going to barter.

"You don't have to give me anything," Caroline says, shaking her head. "Your necklace belongs with Bonnie, she's family. I don't need something in return for giving my best friend something that belongs to her."

Emily finally smiles. It's soft and gentle, something that somehow heightens her immense beauty even more.

"It is nice to see that friendship and loyalty still matter, especially between witches, I'm happy to hear it," Emily says softly before her face settles into an impassive expression once more. "There are vampires entombed beneath Fell Church, Caroline. They are old vampires that should not be released back into the world. As witches, it is our duty to ensure balance."

"I don't really understand what that means," Caroline admits. "This is all very new to me."

Emily cracks a little smile at that, before her face softens, "I understand. In time, you will too. For now, understand that those vampires can't be allowed to roam the earth again. Damon must not be allowed to use my power to undo the spell I put in place to keep the vampires beneath the tomb and desiccating. They should stay for all of time. She should for all of time."

Caroline's sure there is more to the story than she knows, but maybe Bonnie will be able to tell her more after Caroline reunites the two of them together. She did appreciate the older witch talking to her. This was definitely cool.

"Okay," Caroline says softly, feeling like she should just agree with the older witch for now. There still so many things that she doesn't understand. She needs to learn more if she's going to be part of this world.

"Please return my necklace to Bonnie and I'll have her destroy it. As repayment, I will give you information," Emily says.

"You don't have to do that," Caroline cuts in. "I'll give the necklace to Bonnie. You don't have to give me anything."

"I know," Emily says, "but I feel I must. Katherine had something peculiar in her possession while we were together. Something she passed off to another when she thought I wasn't looking. I know not what it was or what its purpose was, but it was important and it had something to do with the Hybrid you fancy. It was something she was keeping from him. I can tell you where it is, or for whom she once left in its care. From there, I believe our business will conclude."

"Hybrid I fancy?" Caroline echoes.

Emily nods. "Yes, Klaus. Katherine lived in fear of him for as long as I've known her and probably far longer still."

Caroline's eyebrows pull together. "Why was she scared of Klaus?"

Emily shakes her head slowly. "I don't know. Katherine was far too paranoid, too mistrusting, too selfish to ever offer up information that didn't benefit her to ever give that information. But I'm sure, you can ask your Hybrid, and he may say more."

"Okay," Caroline agrees, nodding. "So... how do I go back? How do I get out of this... what did you call it?"

"Pocket dimension," Emily says, nodding back. "Close your eyes, focus on your own breathing and the beating of your heart. Release the magic. You are a Siphon witch, it should come easier to you than most. Let it go."

Caroline obeys, closing her eyes and focusing on her own breathing, listening to the beat of her heart as she severs the connection with the magic that linked her to Emily's talisman. Feeling like this was the last time she would see this witch, she whispers, "Goodbye, Emily."

And as the connection between them severs she hears in her ear, "George. George Lockwood was his name." A moment of silence, then, "Goodbye, Caroline. And good luck. May Katherine Pierce never cross your path."

Caroline opens her eyes to see the beautiful landscape replaced once more with the office within the Mikaelson manner. Kol is sitting in front of her with his ankles crossed and his knees pulled close to his chest, dark brown eyes watching her. Caroline feels this terrible ache across her entire body as she sees the light is now on in the office and it's pitch black outside.

Every part of Caroline's body hurts from sitting in the exact same position for hours on end. She looks down at the necklace - a talisman - before looking back up at Kol.

"That was crazy," she admits, turning sideways and laying down flat so that she can stretch out her entire body, listening to the pops and cracks across her entire body. It hurts and feels good at the same time. She's not sure exactly how long she was sitting like that, but it was certainly longer than her body appreciated.

"I bet," Kol says, tilting his head a bit. "Want to talk about it?"

Caroline relaxes for a moment, staring at the ceiling, resting her hands, with the necklace in between them, on her stomach. Her mind was racing, thinking about everything she and Emily talked about. She could believe this Katherine Pierce, who is a spitting image of her own best friend Elena Gilbert, had somehow known Klaus and Elijah a very long time ago and was the vampire that turned Damon and Stefan. Her mind was spinning with all the information that she absorbed.

Caroline nods, decidedly, looking over at Kol. "Yes, I do," she says, "but I want to talk with Klaus, too."

Kol rolls his eyes, a smile working its way across his lips. "Do we have to? Nik is such a bore. Almost as bad as Finn." He makes a face at that. "Nevermind, no one is as bad as Finn."

***

"This didn't have to be a town meeting," Caroline says softly, looking down at the necklace before looking around the gaggle of Mikaelson siblings; Kol, Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus. It's hard to look at Klaus in specific, seeing as she's been fighting this growing interest in the old vampire since Rebekah put that horrible thought into her head, but to think that once more, someone that Caroline was starting to get more and more interested in was fawning over Elena - er, Katherine, but she looked like Elena - it is hard to accept.

Elena is so tragically beautiful and sometimes it really hurts Caroline. She loves Elena and knows that Elena isn't doing anything to ask for this. She can't help what others think of her. And that is what makes Caroline feel even more ugly. Not really her looks, but her thoughts. Her thoughts make her ugly and she hates that.

"You guys were in there for a long time," Elijah says, adjusting the cuffs of his dress shirt, blissfully pulling Caroline from those horrible thoughts.

"Yeah, especially since Kol left the room like four times and you didn't leave once the whole time you were in there," Rebekah says, eyeing her brother with a droll look directed at the charming grin he sends back at her.

"Aw, come one, Beks," Kol says, sweetly despite her look, "I'm not the one who was working hard. Caroline was."

Rebekah rolls her eyes, unamused by her brother's antics in the slightest. While Caroline was fascinated by their dynamics. Perhaps it's what a thousand years of being with someone will cause, but it's interesting how it's like they can read each other's minds just by staring at each other. Bonnie and Elena are a lot like that. Just one look and it's like they know everything that they need to.

"Well, I got this necklace the day of the Founder's Ball," Caroline says, figuring it was time to get this show on the road, holding up the necklace for everyone to see. "And Kol said that it was a magical object and that I should focus on it and see what it does, well, I found out." She looks down at the necklace, dropping her hands onto her lap as she sits down on the couch next to Rebekah.

"Well?" Rebekah asks, raising perfect eyebrows. "Don't keep us in suspense forever? What is it?"

"It led me to something... what did she call it? A pocket dimension?" She looks over at Kol, hoping that he would understand. "Does that sound familiar?"

Kol's eyebrows shoot toward his eyebrows. "A pocket dimension?" He looks around at the blank stares of his siblings. "It's a form of representational magic. Powerful stuff. Impressive." He looks over at Caroline. "Go on."

Caroline looks over at Klaus. "So... I met the witch who made it, and she told me her name was Emily. And she was alive over a hundred years ago. Alive with Damon, and I'm assuming Stefan. She made a deal with Damon to keep her heirs alive when the Founder's Council started hunting witches or something. So I'm guessing he was still human at the time, or they didn't know he was a vampire..."

Caroline shakes her head, wondering if it even matters at this point or not.

"What sort of deal did this Emily make Damon?" Elijah asks, helping steer Caroline back onto the topic at hand.

"Oh, right. Apparently, there is a tomb beneath Fell Church filled with desiccating vampires from that time. I got the feeling that the Founder's Council..." she makes a face, realizing it as she says it, "that they know about supernaturals. Witches and vampires alike. And a hundred years ago they were purging Mystic Falls of them. Emily wanted Damon to protect her witch bloodline, in return, she would use a spell that would save the vampires that were in Fell Church when it burned down around that time."

"My guess is Damon wants to use Emily's power stored in that necklace to get the tomb vampires out," Elijah concludes accurately. Caroline nods when his dark eyes turn to her.

"And my guess was that Emily was going to help until she was betrayed," Caroline says.

"By Damon?" Rebekah asks, crossing her legs and leaning back into the couch a bit.

"No," Caroline shakes her head, turning to look over at Klaus, "by a woman who knew Klaus. Emily told me that she had been running from Klaus for a long time and because I knew Klaus, this was like her second fold revenge. She wasn't going to get out of that tomb and the person she feared most would also know where she is."

"Well, that could be anyone," Kol jests, "our brother has such a way with people that four out of five people in any given room hate him."

Caroline snorts, rolling her eyes before joining the other siblings in looking around the room to see how many people were actually in his room. Caroline does a quick count and sees Klaus scowl at his little brother and Rebekah busts out laughing.

"Must you take a shot at me every chance that you get?" Klaus growls.

"I don't know, I think I'm kind of slacking. I'm so many years behind on the little brother nagging, I've got to make up for," Kol says easily, turning cool brown eyes to meet his brother's.

Elijah shakes his head, only looking mildly amused despite his siblings' playful jests - which might not be completely playful - turning to look over at Caroline again. "And did Emily offer a name for this person?"

Caroline nods. "Katherine Pierce."

The room falls silent for a moment, looking around at one another. Klaus pushes away from the wall he was leaning against to step closer, no longer annoyed about his siblings and more interested in Caroline's story. "Katherine Pierce, huh. So it is true. She really is still alive out there."

"Katherine is beneath this Fell Church..?" Elijah says slowly, turning a sideways glance over at Klaus. "In a tomb, she can't escape from?"

"Ironically of her own making," Klaus says, sounding pleased while Elijah's expression hardens. Elijah seems to be conflicted about something, easily assuring Caroline that there is a story there.

Caroline looks over at Rebekah. "Did you know that Elena was a doppelganger?"

Rebekah blinks a few times in surprise before her expression levels out and she nods. "I only saw her for the first time a few days ago. But as soon as I saw her, I knew. Katherine wasn't the first. In fact, there was one that came before her, while we were human. A girl in our village. Tatia. She was probably one of the first, if not the first." Rebekah hesitates as if preparing herself for something, "Caroline..."

"Oh," Caroline says, looking over at Klaus, "Did this Katherine girl take something from you? Or had something you wanted?"

Klaus's lips part and he blinks a few times in confusion, and then, a smirk works its way across his lips. "The moonstone." He looks up at the ceiling as if thanking God, before turning pretty blue eyes back to Caroline. "And this helpful Emily wouldn't have happened to know where it is now, would she?"

"No, just that whatever it was, and I don't know for certain it's this moonstone, but it was given to someone a hundred years ago before she was entombed," Caroline says. "A man by the name of George Lockwood."

"Niklaus," Elijah says, using a tone of voice that makes Klaus's lips fall flat as he looks over at his older brother. "We have to tell her. We have to tell her about the curse on you, and what you want to do."

A pit forms in Caroline's stomach, not sure she likes the sound of that.

***

Caroline lies in bed that night, listening to the soft sounds of Rebekah sleeping next to her. She's tired, but her racing mind wouldn't allow her to even close her eyes. Caroline appreciates the honesty, appreciates that Klaus told her about being a hybrid, about the spell his own mother cast on him to keep his werewolf - holy cow, now there are werewolves? - side at bay.

She got to hear the rest of the story about all of that. About their father hunting them, about them all living on the run, about how they met Katherine, about how she stole the moonstone, which is vital for breaking the curse placed on Klaus by his mother, and even how he sought revenge against her. It's hard to hear, harder to even imagine seeing as he has never been anything but kind to her, but there is something to say about being able to admit it. And it was honestly a lot to hear, and a lot to accept.

And on top of that, Caroline has to think about this ritual too. The one that will break the spell on Klaus. The one that asks for the lives of not only a vampire and werewolf but also Elena's life. Caroline got fired up so quick, ready to tell Klaus it wasn't going to happen. She wasn't going to let him kill her best friend and immediately regretted telling him where to find the moonstone when Elijah butt in.

Rebekah told her brothers about Elena as soon as she saw them and since then, Elijah has been trying to think of a way to save her and might have come up with a solution, but he still needed a bit more time to see if it would work.

Klaus wanted to find the moonstone and break it in the next few days when the moon was full, and Caroline just started bawling her eyes out. Maybe it's all the stress, or maybe the horrifying thought of Klaus going to kill her best friend, but then she was crying hysterically, begging Klaus not to kill her best friend. That she would do anything to keep her alive. That if any part of him cared a little bit, then he would wait until Elijah was sure there was a way to keep all three of the sacrifices alive.

Caroline grabbed onto his arms, begging with him, pleading, "Please, Klaus, please, don't kill my best friend. Please, I'll do anything!" She was gripping his arms so tightly, feeling weak and trying to somehow find the strength to magically be able to both help her friend undo a wrong done to him, but also keep her best friend alive and not have to kill two other innocent people when she realized she was siphoning from him. Her hands glowing a bright red and in her frenzied state, the lights were flickering and the candles around the room burst into flames, died, then burst into flames again.

Caroline yanks her hands back, not meaning to do that. She can feel his power flowing through her system. Like with Elijah, he was so much stronger than Damon, or the orb she's siphoning from. She looks down at her hands, seeing bright lights beneath her skin, making her skin look almost translucent and luminescent at the same time. She's not sure when she started siphoning from him but it was more than she had taken from Elijah the last time she siphoned from another person.

She watches as the twinkling starlight and small arks of electricity between her fingers finally sinks into her skin, returning it to normal once more.

"I'm sorry," Caroline whispered, rubbing the tears on her cheeks away. "I didn't mean to do that."

Klaus reaches out, taking her hands again, letting out a long, drawn-out sigh. "Fine. I will wait. I will wait for Elijah to come up with a plan. Just... please, love, shed no more tears."

Caroline collapsed into his arms, alternating between thanking him for being willing to wait, and apologizing for making him do so. She'll become Elijah's lackey if it means that it'll save Elena's life. She's so thankful for him, and she's sorry. Sorry that he has to keep waiting. She'll make it up to him, somehow. She knows that she will. She will show him how much she appreciates this.

But now she's laying here, trying to figure out what to do next. Klaus will need a witch, maybe Caroline can help him with that. But in order to do that, she needs to become strong enough to perform such a strong spell. That means, every waking moment not as school or sleeping, she's going to be with Kol, becoming stronger. Becoming more capable.

Caroline rolls over onto her side, toward Rebekah. "Hey, Rebekah... are you still awake?"

Rebekah breaths deeply before her lip part and she says softly, "How am I suppose to sleep with all of your tossing and turning?"

Caroline sighs. "I'm sorry, I'm just too in my head, I think."

"A lot has been laid on you today, I wouldn't beat yourself up about it. You're handling it surprisingly well, if you ask me," Rebekah says softly. She opens her eyes, turning her head to look over at Caroline. "You're a lot like her, you know."

"Lilah?" Caroline guesses.

Rebekah nods. "She was so sweet too. She was so... all-knowing. It was like nothing ever surprised her. She always knew what to say, always knew what to do." Rebekah blinks a few times slowly, eyes glazing over in remembrance. "She cared. About us, I mean. All of us siblings. And her cousin, Tatia, and the children of the village, but she was indifferent to everyone else. As much as we loved her, it was hard to see sometimes. She kept to herself when it came to the adults like she didn't want to get close to them. Honestly, I think Finn said it best, it was like she didn't want to get attached. To anyone really, but she couldn't help herself with us and the kids."

Caroline's eyebrows pull together. "Why was that?"

"I don't know," Rebekah admits.

A moment of silence, before Caroline blurts out, "Did he really love her? Klaus, I mean. And Lilah. And maybe Katherine too."

Rebekah stares at her through the darkness, contemplatively, making Caroline squirm. She's about to take it back, tell the older woman to forget about it, when she says, softly, "Yes. And no. Yes, he loved Lilah. And no, he didn't love Katherine."

Caroline opens her mouth to say... what? She wasn't sure, but nothing comes out so she closes her mouth again. "Katherine was a means to an end. She was to be the sacrifice for the ritual to break Nik's curse. He didn't love her. He tolerated her. And maybe in a way he was trying to hurt Elijah, who was falling in love with her and the face so much the same as his beloved Tatia. I don't know why. I don't know why Nik does the things he does. I don't understand why he does the things he does, but I know he didn't love her. I noticed a very clear theme all the girls he grew serious - at least, serious for him - with over the years that they all had in common. They all either looked like Lilah or acted like her in a very noticeable capacity. The latter part of that just after losing her, and then the former the closer to now we get."

"I guess that makes me perfect then," Caroline says softly, hurting herself with her own words.

Rebekah sighs, shifting a bit to make herself more comfortable. "Listen, Caroline, I'm sure this is going to be hard to believe, especially after everything I just said, but here it goes. You are a doppelganger of Lilah's it's true, and you act a lot like her, that's also true, but my brother isn't the same person he was all those years ago. He isn't the same person he was when he fell in love with Lilah. He's not looking for the same things in a girl anymore."

Caroline's eyebrows pull together, kind of able to understand that. A lot of time has passed since he was human. A thousand years is a long time to hold a torch for someone. And it's a long time to remain stagnant.

"Lilah was very secretive, and that allure captured my brother, I'm sure. She never talked much about herself, never really exposed herself, and while her kindness was always real, her love was skin deep. She never let anyone in. She was a protector. She protected my brothers. She protected me. She protected the children of the village and she fought harder than any man ever could. She was haunted, though, I think, by something she never put to words, something she never trusted to anyone outside of her own mind. But my brother doesn't need a protector anymore. He doesn't trust secrets and he's not impressed with superficial love.

"I think that's what he was trying to say the other day, when we first spoke about Lilah," Rebekah continues. "He knew from the moment he saw you, that you were her doppelganger, not her. And I wouldn't dare ever compare the two of you in terms of love. But all of the things that we loved about Lilah, the things that made us able to look past the things that we didn't quite love, you are so completely. You're honest and pure and kind and sweet. You're orderly and joyful and compassionate beyond measure. You look at the world with wide, trusting eyes still so willing to see the good in it all."

Caroline feels tears stab at the back of her eyes but she quickly blinks them away. "You're going to make me cry, Rebekah."

Rebekah smiles softly. "Don't cry, darling. We sought you out because you looked like Lilah. We love you for you. Don't think for a moment you have to change for us. Just keep being you and don't worry about a thing. We are here with you. You are our family and we love you. If you believe nothing else from tonight, at least believe that."


	14. Plans

Lilah had fun, spending the whole day with the children of Mikael and Esther. It was wonderful to see Rebekah so happy and lively. She looks like she really needed this time. She needed to spend time with her siblings, listening to them bicker and argue playfully but they were all brothers. And as the only sister amongst them, she was doted on in their own ways.

Henrik was all, "Rebekah, look at this" and "Rebekah, look at that" and "Isn't this pretty, Rebekah?" He was clinging to her the whole time. Kol was picking on everyone other than her, making playful jests for her amusement. The one time every year, when they aren't the butt of Kol's jokes, is on their birthday. Klaus, well, he was showering her with compliments and keeping his arm over her shoulder. Elijah was treating her very queenly. She wanted for nothing and he did it all with a sweet half-smile on his face. And Finn, well, Finn was actually fun. He was cracking a few jokes and even offering to tell a few stories about one thing or another.

In preparation for this, Lilah and Tatia had made Rebekah's gift well in advance. While the brothers offered an assortment of things, from wood carvings to a new dress to a very pretty stone that Henrik found in the river. A beautiful blue, the color of her eyes. Lilah and Tatia together made a bracelet for her. They got twine of as many colors as they could get for it. It was pretty despite not having a lot of bright colors and it took a long time for them to finish. But Rebekah's eyes lit up at the sight of it, like everything else and promised to cherish all that was given to her.

Lilah knew it wasn't easy for the siblings. Their lives were hard. She knew that Mikael was a monster and whenever she heard of Mikael berating or beating on Niklaus, she would rush to his side as soon as possible. Almost always she was too late. Mikael already tired himself out, or someone else had chased him off, or something else caught his attention. Lilah hated it, but it was probably for the best that she never caught him in the act. She's not sure what she would do to him if she was ever left with him.

It's not something Lilah wants to think about.

Once nighttime rolls around they all return to their homes. Esther is waiting outside her home for her children, no doubt having been informed of their plan for the day, and having prepared dinner for their return. Rebekah happily bounced up to her mother, flower crown in her hair, made by Lilah and Tatia with flowers that Henrik picked out, and all the gifts in her arms, excited to show them off to her. As they all pile inside Lilah spares one last, happy smile to the blonde girl before following Tatia into their own shared home, nodding to Niklaus when he met her gaze.

Tomorrow. She'd give it to him tomorrow.

As fun as the day was, she was ready to head home and sleep about ten minutes into it. All that magic, staying up all night, and inadequate sleep from the bit she got is catching up to her extremely quickly. But she holds on. She has dinner with her family, gets chastised by her mother, and is sent off to sleep. Lilah is thankful, falling into her bed and sleeping before her head hits her pillow.

"Are you okay?" Rebekah asks, sitting down next to Caroline, her eyebrows pulled together.

Caroline stares at the vacant seat for a few moments, blinking rapidly, trying to figure out if this really happened to her or not. A lot of different emotions wash over her as she tries to understand what just happened.

"Caroline?" Rebekah calls out to her, tilting her head slightly. "What happened? Why are you looking like that?"

"I... I gave the necklace back to Bonnie, and she just left. She didn't want it in the first place but... she must have felt the magic in it when she touched it because she took it..." Caroline's eyebrows pull together tightly. "I was going to tell her, talk to her about me being a witch too, and she just... left. She just said that she had to go and that she would talk to me later."

Rebekah's eyebrows pull together tightly. "So she just left?"

Caroline nods, shaking her head slowly. "I was going to tell her about me, but she left. It feels like lying, not telling her that I know that she's a witch and that I'm one too."

Rebekah gives her a look, crossing her arms over her chest and giving her a look. "It's not lying. You tried to tell her and she walked away. Just give her a bit of time, realizing what she is after living a good portion of her life not knowing is cause for a bit of an adjustment period. When she's ready, she'll talk to you and Elena."

Caroline nods. "Yeah, give her a few days, maybe a week, and then we can have a sleepover or something and maybe we can talk then." She feels bad for not being able to talk to her right away, but it doesn't make her feel better knowing that she's got a plan to talk to her. She doesn't like feeling like she's being dishonest.

Rebekah uncrosses her arms and places a hand over Caroline's. "Oh love, you are too sweet, I swear. Don't worry about Bonnie. When she's ready to talk, she will. It's not lying or being dishonest to not say something." Rebekah gives her hand a reassuring squeeze. "She'll come to you when she's ready. Until then... just keep focusing on getting stronger."

Caroline nods, flipping her hand over to squeeze Rebekah's. "Will do."

Caroline went right to the Mikaelson house with Rebekah after cheer practice that day. After Elena quit the squad a spot was open for Rebekah to take, and honestly since Bonnie has also lost interest in cheer, no doubt because of the awakening of her magic, so Caroline was happy to have someone consistently staying with her. Rebekah seemed to enjoy being part of a group, being one of the girls. Caroline liked having Rebekah there with her.

Practicing magic wore her out, so Caroline didn't bother showering and changing. She just reapplied deodorant and body mist - as much she could bear - to ensure that she didn't stink too much before going to practice with Kol. Who appreciated her shorts and her knotted t-shirt. Caroline didn't mind the harmless flirting, especially since Klaus didn't seem to appreciate it, and Rebekah is just too in her head.

Klaus is beautiful, and she's definitely crushing on him despite not wanting to, but she would never do anything. But, ugh, Rebekah needs to stop giving her looks every time Klaus is in her general vicinity.

Caroline and Kol head out to the massive backyard in the Mikaelson estate and he teaches her other spells, offensive ones. She was struggling at first, not wanting to hurt Kol, despite him assuring her that there was no way someone of her level would be able to hurt him, she was still very reluctant. She didn't mind learning the spell and throwing around chairs in the yard for a while, but Kol grew tired of that very quickly, feeling that more practical experience would be beneficial for her.

So he used pinching her to encourage her to let out her inner rage. And if there was one thing that Caroline couldn't stand, it was being pinched. After that, she got plenty of practice tossing Kol around the back yard for a few hours. It was amusing enough that Klaus and Rebekah came out to watch and even cheer her on when she stopped just shoving him around and just threw him around the yard.

Kol has a dirty mouth on him, capable of making her ears burn with anger at some of the things she says, in playful jabs. So he makes it easy to keep throwing him around until she physically doesn't have the strength to keep doing it. She lays down in the grass, on her back and stares up at the sky, loving the beautiful starburst across the sky. Her heart is pounding in her chest and her muscles hurt. Magic is taking so much out of her. She's building up stamina for it, but it's not like Cheer. Cheer is just exhaustion of the body but this is both physical and mental exhaustion.

"I understand, love," Rebekah says, laying down in the grass next to her. "I figure tossing Kol around the backyard would get boring too, at some point. But you're getting stronger, Caroline. You should be proud."

Caroline smiles tiredly, not even able to pull her eyes away from the sunset because of how tired she is. She blinks a few times slowly before saying, "I'm going to be gone for about a week."

Rebekah looks over at her. "Where are you going?"

"To stay with my dad," Caroline says. "And honestly, it'll be a nice little reprieve from all the stress here in Mystic Falls, but I'm going to miss you guys." She finally manages to look over at Rebekah. "Promise you won't miss me too much?"

Rebekah smiles a bit. "I'll try not to, love, but know that despite what Nik might think, I am very loyal and I don't like it when the people I love just up and vanish from my life."

Caroline laughs, rolling her eyes as Kol trudges into the house. "I'm not going to up and vanish. I'm telling you now. I'm going to visit my dad. I'll be leaving on Friday and will be back the following Sunday."

"That's not a week!" Rebekah exclaims, blue eyes blown wide. "That's nine days!"

"I love you!" Caroline laughs.

Caroline and Rebekah sit in silence for a few minutes before Rebekah finally says, "Do you want to stay the night?"

Caroline laughs again, shaking her head. "I have to go home and shower, I'm gross."

Rebekah clicks her tongue, rolling her eyes in Caroline's peripheral. "You can just borrow my clothes, darling, that isn't a problem."

Caroline shakes her head, knowing that Rebekah would have offered that, but then realized it was never in reverse. Rebekah and her brothers have always been so ready and willing to let her come into their space, and she has yet to be able to offer that to her friend. Caroline turns to look at Rebekah, who in turn does the same.

"Come to my house," Caroline says. "Meet my mom, for real this time. I'm sure she'll love you."

Rebekah's face breaks out into a pretty smile. "I would love that."

Caroline forces herself to sit up, despite how tired she is, and the two girls head inside. They head into the kitchen to see Klaus, Kol, and Elijah talking around the table. Caroline flops down unceremoniously down into the chair next to Klaus, and across from Kol, her body starting to ache.

At Klaus's curiously look, she admits, "I'm starting to hurt."

"You and me both, sister," Kol says playfully.

Klaus offers him a slight glance before turning his attention back to Caroline, his full lips pressing together with amusement as he says, "But watching my dear brother Kol fly around the yards was very amusing."

"Cathartic, even," Elijah jests, and Caroline can't help but laugh breathlessly at that. She feels bad, laying her hand on Kol's in an apology. She felt bad, not wanting to hurt him, but he was the one that kept pushing her. She knew it was for her training and that she shouldn't take this to heart, but she never wanted to hurt her friends. Never.

Admittedly, she knew that the stuff he said was just to get the rise he needed from her, but she was still thinking about it. He said a lot of stuff. And no doubt Rebekah has been talking about her to her brothers - or they asked about her - and Rebekah talked to them about Elena. Specifically about how Caroline gets a little weird around her. Or maybe Lilah got weird around Elena's past doppelganger or one of the doppelgangers that came before her. Or however, that is explained, but pressing a bit on Caroline's insecurities.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you, Kol," Caroline says softly, looking up into his dark brown eyes.

Kol gives her a haughty sideways smirk. If he was bothered at all, he didn't show it on his face. "Oh, you think being tossed around the yard a little bit is enough to hurt my feelings?"

Caroline pats his arm, deciding if he was bothered he wasn't going to say anything so she lets him go. Sure, Kol's an immortal, unkillable Original Vampire, so someone like her wouldn't be able to kill him - hence the unkillable part - but that doesn't mean the pain isn't pain. And Kol really was starting to become her friend, so she didn't want to hurt him. Even if he could heal from it without even a thought.

"So," Caroline says, "as I told Rebekah, I'm going out of town for a few days this weekend."

Elijah tilts his head a bit. "Oh? And where are you going, if I may?"

"I'm going out to see my dad and his new boyfriend." Caroline shrugs her shoulders. "I'm going to be gone a little over a week, so maybe this hardcore session was a good one to leave off on." She glances over at Kol.

"Sure," Kol says easily. "I'll locate some easy spells for you to practice in secret while you're away. It'll help improve your control if nothing else."

Caroline nods, eagerly. Something small, something easy that she can hide from her dad would be best. She wants to get stronger as fast as possible, and she's been in Cheer long enough to know that control is a key part of power. Plus, as hard as it is, there is something cathartic about using magic. It helps her relax and makes her feel more in control.

Caroline is a control freak by nature, needing everything to be perfect, so being offered more exercises that help her do that makes her feel better. She smiles thankfully at him.

"Thank you, Kol."

Caroline looks over at Klaus, unable to help herself, to see him staring off into the distance. She leans a bit closer to Kol to try and catch Klaus's eye, and even when she finds it, there are still a few moments, where he continues to stare off, not even realizing that he was being stared at. He blinks a few times, pulling back into himself and turning his pretty blue eyes toward her.

"Don't be too upset," Caroline says, jokingly, a playful crooked grin spreading across her face a bit. "Just because I'm the light of your life and heading out for a few days, doesn't mean you have to be so sullen."

Klaus smiles, pursing his lips a bit. "You sure do have a very colorful imagination, Caroline."

"But am I wrong?" Caroline asks playfully. Ever since they talked about breaking the curse, and Caroline begged him to wait, he has been very spacey. She knows that it has to be a pain to make him wait, but they were still looking for this supposed stone that would also need to play a role in Klaus breaking the curse placed on him.

"Not at all," Klaus says, amused. His pretty blue eyes are twinkling as he stares back at her.

Caroline has never had a curse placed on her - at least not as far as she knows - but she can understand that at least, in part, it's got to be about wonder. Wondering about the piece of himself he doesn't have access to. For Caroline, she just didn't know what that part of her meant. But knowing about that piece and not having any sort of connection to it outside of simply knowing that was there. And while they are still missing a key piece to breaking his curse, Caroline still feels bad about asking him to wait.

Caroline smiles at Klaus, relieved when he smiles back. Before she goes to visit her dad, she's going to see if she can find anything about the moonstone, but she doesn't have a lot of faith in her ability to find anything, she has to at least try. She owes Klaus at least that much.

"So, when would you like to go over to your house?" Rebekah asks, her voice hitched in excitement. Caroline has to wonder if Rebekah has ever had a sleepover at someone else's house before. Caroline pulls her eyes from Klaus's to Rebekah's.

"Let's go now. Grab whatever you need, or shower, or both, and then we can go."

Rebekah nods, pushing her chair out from beneath her and heads for the stairs quickly, her whole demeanor is excited as she bounces up the stairs.

Caroline laughs softly, looking after her friend. "She is too cute. I just love her."

"She's alright," Kol says, playfully dismissive, rolling his eyes. Caroline waves him away, catching Elijah's soft smile and matching it with her own. Okay, Kol's fondness for Rebekah would be their little secret.

Caroline has got to say that she had the best sleepover with Rebekah. They started out by going to dinner at The Grill, playing a few games of pool, then going to Caroline's house where she officially got to invite her friend into her house - having momentarily forgotten that her vampire friend needed to be invited in, which is funny considering she was using her newly awakened magical ability to throw the other girl's brother around their yard just a few hours prior.

Liz came home not long after they got there and they stayed up talking for a while before Liz sent the girls to bed, in which they laid side-by-side continuing to talk about anything and everything. Caroline listened to Rebekah talk about her life - the pieces she was awake for - and was mesmerized by the passage of time. Caroline always got good grades in school, so she knew her history well enough, but to talk to someone who lived through it was amazing. She talked about events Caroline knew or at least heard about, and things that never made it into the history books as far as she knew.

Rebekah even talked about the roaring twenties with fondness and Caroline couldn't help but stick that nugget of information away for when the decade dance started to rear up on them. Rebekah talked about Stefan, about how at the time she first met him he was in the middle of what she affectionately referred to as a 'Ripper Binge'.

"He was much more fun then," Rebekah sighs, rolling her ankles under the covers until they crack. "Now he's boring and dreary. And no offense, but it is definitely Elena's fault. It's dreadfully awful. I know that she's your friend and you love her, but I just don't like her. I don't like anything about her."

Caroline rolls her eyes, deciding not to touch that last comment with a ten-foot pole. "I highly doubt that Stefan is like the way he is solely because of Elena, Beks. He was like that before he met her. Maybe she just helps him stay on the straight and narrow. Which, seeing as I'm human, I can't exactly say the idea of Ripper Stefan never making an appearance is as dreadfully awful as you seem to think it is."

Rebekah turns her head to the side to look over at Caroline. "You know what I mean, love. He wouldn't hurt you, of course. You're too wonderful. As much as I like Stefan, if he so much as touched one hair on your pretty little head, I would rip his head off." She does a little half-shrug. "Oh well, boys come and go like seasons, but girlfriends are forever."

Caroline laughs. "Well, it's a good thing we don't have to worry about that. Stefan's not a Ripper anymore," she shivers a bit, unable to really picture Stefan as the monster that Rebekah described, "and things are going to be good for all of us. We're going to find the moonstone, fix Klaus, I'm going to master magic like a boss, and finish high school with a bang, and then I'll get married to the man of my dreams and have the June wedding I've always wanted. We'll be living our best lives and when I'm old and wrinkling, we'll vow to see each other again on the other side."

Rebekah casts her a sideways glance, frowning a bit. "I don't want to think about you growing old and dying. Not now. Not while you're so young."

"Think of it as getting to see me in all my magnificent forms. Lilah, me, who's to say how great the next one will be," Caroline jokes but Rebekah barely cracks a smile at that.

"Beyond Tatia, I never liked any of the doppelgangers before you. Not Katherine or Elena. And like we already told you, you were the first of Lilah's doppelgangers that we've seen. Maybe there were others, maybe not, but I love you. I don't know if I'll love any of the others and I don't want to know. I don't want to think about you dying, and you shouldn't either," Rebekah says finitely. "Now get some sleep, we have school tomorrow."

Caroline doesn't respond for a moment as a yawn pulls from her chest. She's had a long, exhausting day and she's ready to get some sleep. So she agrees, whispering goodnight to her friend before rolling over and slipping to sleep before long. Rebekah whispered back to her but Caroline isn't sure if she heard her say goodnight, or her brain simply interpreted it that way.

The following morning, Liz made some quick breakfast before heading out for work for the day while the girls went and got ready for school. It was nice to be able to get ready in the morning with someone. Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline used to get ready together on the first day of school every year except for this one. This was the first time that they didn't. Caroline knows and understands why, but that didn't make it hard for her to come to school to see Bonnie and Elena hopping out of the car together. She knows that Elena went to pick Bonnie up, but still...

The control freak in Caroline can't deal easily with things changing so much. It's been a struggle just trying to accept this new part of her and that her new friends are ancient vampires that knew her once before when she went by a different name. Now everything is witches, vampires, werewolves, doppelgangers, spells, curses, and almost dying.

Even if for only a week, it'll be nice to step away from all of that. She'll practice like she promised Kol, but it'll also be nice to just spend some quality time with her dad and get to know his boyfriend, all while recharging. Then she can come back as fit as a fiddle and push onward.

But it's nice to do something that she's used to. Getting ready in the morning talking with Rebekah, before she drives them both to school and Rebekah accompanies her to her classes to pick up her homework for the time she's going to be missing. Caroline doesn't like leaving things for the last minute, so she made sure to alert her teachers as soon as she knew when she was going so that she could get the homework and get started on it right away. They stayed in one of the classrooms, talking while Caroline worked on some of the easy stuff until class started and they went their separate ways.

In the days leading up to Caroline leaving, she kept to a rigorous schedule. She would go to school, do cheer practice, then go over to the Mikaelson home to practice magic with Kol before either staying for dinner and going home or being so exhausted that she passed out on the couch and Rebekah would text her mom to let her know that she wouldn't be coming home for the night. And then someone would carry her to bed. It's embarrassing, though. So if Caroline thought that she wasn't going to be able to make it home, she would try her best to fall asleep once she crawled upstairs to Rebekah's room. But that's not always the case.

Bonnie was distant, no doubt learning from Emily or something of the like and at some point, Elena and Stefan broke up, which Elena, naturally, didn't want to talk about. Caroline tried again before she left to reach out to her best friends to let them know that she too was in on the whole vampires, werewolves, and witches secret, but even though they both quit Cheer neither seemed to have any time anymore. Bonnie was spending more time with her Grams, Elena was having problems with Jeremy and Vicki and Tyler by extension.

There was something else that Kol had been teaching her that they were learning in secret. Kol was teaching her how to use Lilah's unique siphoning ability. Now, Kol was never a siphoner so he had to just use his own educated guesses in how to teach her, but he ended up being right. It wasn't a large range, like Lilah, but Caroline could feel out magic in a given area around her. Siphon it from objects and people without directly touching them. It was something she asked Kol to keep secret as a plan formed in her head.

Elijah said that her help wasn't necessary for figuring out how to keep all the sacrifices alive, but that he had appreciated her willingness to not only help but to keep her word. She had him promise that should he need her at all, to simply ask, as she had promised Klaus. Elijah smiled softly at that, promising to do as she asked before telling her to focus on getting stronger.

Caroline couldn't just ignore what was going on and knew that she had to do something to help, so she turned her attention to the other thing that she could do; find the moonstone. And if her suspicions were right, there is a chance it was in the Lockwood mansion, and before she left the day after tomorrow to go and visit her dad, she was going to find that moonstone.


End file.
